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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28339260">We won't die here</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bagge/pseuds/Bagge'>Bagge</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Beast Island (She-Ra), Co-dependence, Depression, Enemies to Lovers, F/F, Fur will fly, Hurt/Comfort, It will all end in sparkles, It will get worse before it gets better, Mutual Support, PTSD, Season 2, Ties that bind, Wilderness Survival, hardship, sparks will fly, survival against all odds</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-04-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 19:21:11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>39,649</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28339260</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bagge/pseuds/Bagge</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>After a fatally botched kidnapping attempt, and an even more impressively botched teleportation attempt, Glimmer and Catra have to survive on Beast Island. Faced with the choice of cooperation or certain death they have a hard time deciding.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Catra/Glimmer (She-Ra)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>321</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>309</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. I wish you were dead</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is basically me forcing the character development from Season Five on Glimmer and Catra from Season Two. Much more rough edges that haven't yet been polished off, but then again, neither of them have attempted to destroy the universe so that's something.</p><p>Um.... this story is growing a tad more bleak than I first anticipated. Beast Island does that to a narrative, what with that whole "first one's signal that is a thinly wailed metaphor for depression" thing and all. So there will be some exploration of co-dependence, depression and survival of hardship in this. But don't worry, all will be sparkles in the end.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"So much for the power of friendship," Catra mocked and turned off the com-pad. Glimmer felt Entrapta's words pound through her head like nails. </p><p>
  <i>I love it here.</i>
</p><p>Entrapta was working willingly with the Horde. Entrapta had hacked the Black Garnet. All that death and destruction because of one of their own. And she <i>loved</i> it?</p><p>"Come on, Glimmer. Let's go." Bow put a supportive hand on her shoulder.</p><p>"...Glimmer?" She slapped the hand away. With a furious growl, Glimmer charged. She easily dodged Bow - who tried to hold her back, and Scorpia - who tried to block her from reaching Catra. She was so terribly angry. Everything had gone wrong today. The rescue attempt, the kidnapping, <i>Entrapta</i>. Her head was spinning with guilt and betrayal. And over all of it she saw Catra's mocking face, heard Catra's mocking laugh. This was all Catra's fault. If only she could...</p><p>But she could, couldn't she?</p><p>"I wish you were dead," she snarled as she slammed into the smugly grinning force captain. She had saved just a tiny bit of power. Enough to teleport them away from the rest of the Horde soldiers. Enough to give her a few moments alone with Catra. Enough to...</p><p>
  <i>Enough to kill her.</i>
</p><p>In her rage, she felt the power build up. It seemingly flowed into her from all directions, a terrible, unstoppable flood. The moment stretched for eternity and at the edge of her vision she thought she saw letters of the kind the first ones used... A message? A code? She was so close to understand it...</p><p>In that instance Glimmer knew that there was nothing preventing her from taking care of Catra for good.</p><p>"Glimmer!" Bow cried.</p><p>Locking eyes with Catra, she smirked and teleported them away. She had the satisfaction of seeing Catra's self assured grin change into uncertainty. It was not the instant poof she was used to. It was like falling in every direction at once. It was like being flushed around by an underwater maelstrom, with nothing to do but hope that it would allow them up for air eventually. Glimmer felt power draining from her, and idly she wondered if this was what dying felt like.</p><p>
  <i>What's happening?</i>
</p><p>Suddenly, they appeared again. Catra tore herself free and took several steps back. Glimmer watched her fear in tired satisfaction, but at the same time she felt her consciousness slip.</p><p>Glimmer had over-drafted her powers many times (to the great concern of her mother), always pushing herself as far as she could, trying to get the small amount of sparkles she had to last as long as possible. But never like this. As she felt a terrible blackness overcome her, she seriously wondered if would ever wake up again.</p><p>Catra looked around in panic.</p><p>"Where are we?" she cried. Glimmer managed a chuckle.</p><p>"Somewhere where you will never hurt anyone again," she mumbled. And everything went black.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>We start our story in the tail end of the Season 2 episode "Ties that bind." Everything up to Glimmer charging Catra follows the original script. Everything after will be quite divergent indeed.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Not the Whispering Woods</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Glimmer woke up. That was somewhat surprising.</p><p>She was tied up. That was not very surprising, given the circumstances.</p><p>She was propped up against the trunk of a tree and tied with some sort of vines. Catra stood some distance away still like a statue, only her head moving every few seconds to take in a new direction.</p><p>"My turn to be your prisoner, then," she said with weak voice, and Catra's head whipped round. She walked up to Glimmer and hunched down in front of her.</p><p>"Ssssssh. Keep it down. There are <i>things</i> out there," she whispered.</p><p>"Good thing too," Glimmer went on, feeling lite-headed. "Since I did such a botch job of kidnapping you, perhaps you could show me how it's done."</p><p>"<i>Shut up</i>. I mean it. Whatever is out there is not something we should mess with." The urgency in Catra's voice got through to Glimmer and she shut her mouth.</p><p>"What is out there?" she whispered after a few moments. Catra gave her an annoyed look.</p><p>"I just told you I don't know. Something big. More legs than I'm comfortable with." She stepped up to Glimmer and held her by the throat. Glimmer could feel the tiny prick of claws that were almost but not entirely sheeted.</p><p>"Where are we? Were did you teleport us?" she hissed. Glimmer made a gurgling sound and Catra eased the grip somewhat, allowing her too speak.</p><p>"I don't know." The pressure from the claws increased. Catra's face came very close to her own, fangs fully visible.</p><p>"I was in a good mood, because of how inept you were at that whole kidnapping thing. Now I'm in a bad mood because you had to go and <i>ruin</i> it in the last minute. This is the wrong time for games. So tell me, princess. Where. Are. We?"</p><p>"Don't know!" Glimmer squealed as the claws drew blood.</p><p>"I don't believe you."</p><p>"Want me to scream?" Catra froze. Glimmer gave her hard a little smirk.</p><p>"So maybe we just talk then?" she went on. Catra abruptly let go and stalked away to her lookout post again.</p><p>"This is the Whispering Woods, right?" she mumbled, half to herself. "I started to think this place was seriously overrated, but this, right here, actually lives up to the stories. So well done, I suppose."</p><p>"Happy not to disappoint."</p><p>"Shut up. I will figure it out."</p><p>...actually, where <i>were</i> they? Glimmer looked around. It was dark, but it was the sort of darkness which contained a lot of... context. There were lights, there were sounds, there were smells. And there was also a more complex feeling of a presence. Just on the edge of her hearing there was a sound she could almost but not really make out.</p><p>Glimmer shuddered.</p><p>"I don't think this is the Whispering Woods," she said. Catra spun around again.</p><p>"You don't <i>think</i>? You brought us here. Just tell me where we <i>are</i>!"</p><p>"You're afraid?"</p><p>Catra stopped in her tracks and managed to get a grip on herself. She pointedly ignored the last comment.</p><p>"We will wait until dawn," she muttered, more to herself than to Glimmer. "When it's light we will orient ourselves and we can get out of this place." She raised her voice again and gave Glimmer a threatening look.</p><p>"Don't try anything, Sparkles."</p><p>Glimmer had no idea of what, if anything, she could 'try'. Escape, possibly, but she didn't like the sounds of the night any more than Catra. Anyway, she was still fatigued from a long day and from the teleportation. She already felt her consciousness slip, and soon she drifted off to an uneasy sleep where the sound she almost but not really could hear followed her to her dreams.</p><p>- - -</p><p>She woke up and every part of her body screamed at her not to. Her mouth was dry, she felt nauseous and hungry at the same time. But at least it was light outside. She sat up and looked around. Catra was no where to be seen.</p><p>"Hello?" she whispered but got no answer.</p><p>She was still tied with vines, but the knot had slipped and it was an easy job to wriggle out. Hah! How is that for being terrible at kidnapping? She slapped away a vine that tried to crawl closer to her again. Rubbing her wrists she stood up and jogged a bit on the spot to get the blood flowing.</p><p>No Catra.</p><p>Had she left?</p><p>Had... something happened to her?</p><p>Glimmer peaked around the glen. Things were... weird. She didn't recognize the plants, she didn't recognize the insects, there were a lot of strange sounds and smells, and that noise....</p><p>Where were they?</p><p>Glimmer idly realized that she should probably try to escape, but to where?</p><p>She eyed the tree she had been sleeping under. Lots of branches and vines. She could probably climb it high enough to get a good view of the surrounding terrain. She thought about teleporting, but the very thought made her head hurt. She had never tapped her reserves this much before, so until she had recharged, teleportation was off the table.</p><p>So. Climbing. She grabbed a vine and went upwards.</p><p>The tree was large and - disconcertingly - there were vines coiled around its branches that looked decidedly more technological than organic in nature. Glimmer tried her best to fool herself that they weren't moving slightly as she passed.</p><p>She made it as close to the top she dared and looked out at the surrounding terrain. </p><p>Mostly, she saw trees. Strange, dark trees, and a lot of them.</p><p>There were sounds of what she assumed were birds, but disconcertingly sounded more technological in nature than any birds she had heard before. From the trunks of many of the trees, crystals of different colors emerged. The black tendrils were embedded in the canopies, forming a network that tied the trees together.</p><p>She looked around. There were no obvious clearings or openings, but there was a line where the trees were the canopies were less dense. Could it be a stream? That had to lead somewhere, right?</p><p>She climbed down again and reflected on her situation.</p><p>She did not know where she was. She did not know how she got there. she did not know the way out...</p><p>Glimmer sat down by the tree trunk again and sighed.</p><p>She assumed people would look for her, but where would they even start?</p><p>A rustle of the leaves made her jump to her feet. Catra strolled out of the undergrowth and gave her a disgusted look.</p><p>"Really?"</p><p>"What?</p><p>"You don't even <i>try</i> to escape? Are you as useless as a kidnapping victim as a kidnapper?"</p><p>"You were... watching me?"</p><p>"Duh. I thought I could follow you to figure out the path out of here and then snag you again as we left the woods... but you just pretend to be a squirrel instead."</p><p>"Perhaps I'm smarter than falling for an easy trick like that." Catra eyed Glimmer critically.</p><p>"Yeah, perhaps. But you have hidden it really well if that's the case." Her claws popped out. "Maybe I'll just hurt you until you tell me the way out." Glimmer scrambled to her feet.</p><p>"Whoa! No need for violence. We can figure this out."</p><p>"Sure. We can begin with you telling me <i>where we are</i>."</p><p>"I don't know! I swear. I've never been here before. I don't even know how we teleported like that. Nothing like that ever happened before." Catra stared at her unblinking for a few moments and let her claws slide back in.</p><p>"Great. Just great. So I'm stuck with a malfunctioning princess in who-knows-where. I'm most likely out of transmitter range or Scorpia would have been here by now.... OK, Sparkles. you said you could figure it out. Figure it out."</p><p>"Isn't that <i>your</i> job as a kidnapper? Maybe I'll just sit here and let you drag me around for a change."</p><p>"I'm <i>trying</i> to explore alternatives, but if you want to go back to the 'hurting you' plan I'm happy to."</p><p>"All right, all right. No need to get snippy.... um..... OK, so I saw trees in all direction, but I thought I saw a stream, so if we go downhill we might..."</p><p>"Downhill? That's the best you got."</p><p>"I don't hear you coming up with anything better."</p><p>"Fine. But no tricks."</p><p>They started walking. The terrain was rough and there a constant sticky fog of mist and insects making the walk worse. Glimmer considered dragging her feet, but she felt this wasn't the time to provoke Catra. Also, she was to beginning to get anxious to get away from this place, those creepy vines and that noise that was seriously starting to get on her nerves. She'd be in a better position to escape once she got her bearings.</p><p>Catra crept forward in the mist, holding the rope loosely, ears turning in different directions. Glimmer smirked at her.</p><p>"Is this the part where I lick you?" Catra gave her a dry look.</p><p>"You can lick my feet if you like, princess."</p><p>"I'll pass on that one."</p><p>"You know, I bet the horde will be really happy to get you back," Catra said with menace. Glimmered tried her best to hide a shudder.</p><p>"That's what this is still about? You're <i>still</i> trying to impress your creepy mom? Didn't work out too hot for you last time, did it?" Catra stopped dead in her tracks.</p><p>"What did you say?"</p><p>"You brought me, Bow, the sword... gift wrapped to the Fright Zone and <i>she</i> threw you away like yesterday's trash. Why do you think it would be different this time around?"</p><p>"This time <i>she</i> is not calling the shots any more."</p><p>"Oh, so who do you try to impress this time? Hordak. Yeah, I'm sure that will go <i>much</i> better."</p><p>"Shut. Up."</p><p>"Hit a nerve? Why, such a <i>competent</i> adversary such as you must surely get a lot of respect from your peers and higher ups."</p><p>"<i>Shut. UP!</i>"</p><p>"Really got to hand it to Adora - leaving the Horde was the smartest thing she ever di..."</p><p>Catra slapped Glimmer hard over the face. Her claws were mostly sheeted, but enough of them were out for blood to spring out from shallow cuts. Glimmer fell backwards from the force. Catra loomed over her. For a tense moment neither of them spoke.</p><p>"I don't have to bring you back in one piece to the Fright zone, so unless you <i>really</i> have a few fingers to spare, you shut your pretty little mouth right NOW."</p><p>Glimmer, for once, saw the wisdom in silence.</p><p>Not long after that, Catra froze in mid-step. Glimmer was about to ask her why when she heard it too. Twigs breaking, <i>something</i> scraping against wood and metal. Glimmer looked around the mist, and then, out of nowhere, a giant... something rushed towards them.</p><p>It was large as a horse and looked most of all like a giant millipede, slimy and gross with multiple sharp legs ending in claws and with a mouth filled with teeth large as shovels. Catra dropped the rope and jumped to the side. Glimmer ran as quick as she could to the other side, but the monster chased her. She longingly looked at the trees, but there was no chance she could climb with her hands bound. She quickly feinted and doubled back, forcing the monster to turn around which lost it a few seconds. </p><p>For a fleeting second she thought about using her magic, but she dismissed it. Without proper rest and - ideally - the moonstone she would have to do without sparks.</p><p>"Jump!" Catra cried and pointed at a ravine. It sounded like a suicidal suggestion, but then, Glimmer was not exactly spoiled for alternatives. She ran to the ravine and saw water deep down.</p><p>She <i>might</i> not die.</p><p>With the monster right behind her Glimmer jumped and aimed for the water. Before she got that far, however, Catra swung down on a vine and caught her. They landed on the ground below. Catra roughly pushed her against the cliff.</p><p>"Wha..." Glimmer begun.</p><p>"Ssssssh," Catra whispered. "It's still looking."</p><p>They pressed against the cliff and held their breath. After a moment they heard the monster move away from them. They waited a few more heart beats before breathing out.</p><p>"What was that thing," Glimmer asked. Catra shrugged.</p><p>"The sooner we get away from here the better." Glimmer nodded, for once in perfect agreement.</p><p>They waited in silence for awhile.</p><p>"Um... Catra? Thanks for... you know... saving me?" Catra gave her an annoyed look.</p><p>"Couldn't let your useless royal ass get eaten now, could I?" </p><p>"Well if you untied me maybe I wouldn't need to be rescued."</p><p>"You wish." Glimmer hesitated.</p><p>"Listen, I know things are not exactly going to plan for either of us right now, but maybe if we cooperate just until we get out of the forest we could..." She abruptly shut up as Catra barred her fangs at her.</p><p>"I don't need your help, Sparkles. You got us into this mess, remember?"</p><p>"I was just..."</p><p>"Well, don't!" Catra snarled. "I'm having a bad day and you are making it worse." She slashed vindictively at a vine that had crept closer. "<i>And what is that infernal noise</i>," she cried. Glimmer sharply looked up at her.</p><p>"That humming noise? You hear it too. To me it sounds a bit like what you get from old machines who haven't wound down properly."</p><p>"Well, it's driving me nuts" Catra muttered. "I can't wait to get away from this place."</p><p>They continued walking, and eventually they came down to the beach. It was empty. No buildings, no ship, in fact no signs of anything other than the sand, the waves, some thorny bushes and the ruins of what looked like an airship.</p><p>"I just don't get why there is so much tech everywhere," Glimmer mused. "Most of the times, a wreck like this would be picked clean. Look, there are still live power cells in there."</p><p>They walked up to the wreck and poked at it.</p><p>"Maybe there isn't someone around here to do the picking?" Catra suggested. Glimmer shuddered.</p><p>"There must be <i>someone</i>. I can't imagine there being an island just full of monsters and old first one's junk without anyone trying to..." She abruptly looked up as Catra dropped the stick she was prodding the wreck with with a metallic clang.</p><p>"No..." she whispered.</p><p>"Are you...?"</p><p>"Beast Island. You have stranded us on Beast Island." Catra's eyes were wide with horror.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Now when our protagonists are up to speed with the plot we can get started for real.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Beast Island</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Warning: Brutal descriptions of fighting in this chapter</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Catra's eyes were wide with horror. "You have stranded us on Beast Island?" She abruptly turned to Glimmer. "Take us back."</p><p>"Huh? You know I can't..." Catra struck her. Glimmer staggered backwards from the force of the blow. Catra stepped closer, deadly claws sliding out.</p><p>"Take us back NOW!" Glimmer yelped and scrambled backwards.</p><p>"I can't, I promise!" Catra slashed at her again and Glimmer threw up her arms for protection. She felt the claws draw blood.</p><p>"Maybe you are just not motivated enough?" Catra roughly pushed Glimmer to the ground. She loomed over her.</p><p>"Please!" Glimmer cried. Catra held a claw to Glimmer's throat. When she spoke again in was in a calm, deadly tone of voice.</p><p>"I'm not sure you understand the gravity of the situation, princess. Beast Island is a death sentence. For you. For me. For anyone. If you don't take us home <i>now</i>, the <i>things</i> out there will kill us... Well, they will kill me, because <i>I</i> will already have killed you." She pressed the claw into Glimmer's skin, just about drawing blood.</p><p>"Don't you think I would teleport out if I could?" Glimmer whispered in fear. "I can't, please, <i>please</i>..."</p><p>"Ugh. You are <i>pathetic</i>," Catra snarled. She released the pressure and stepped away. Glimmer stared at her, still in shock.</p><p>"What's wrong with you?" she blurted out.</p><p>"No," Catra shot back. "What's wrong with <i>you</i>? Nothing but sparkles and little poofs all day, and then all of sudden you shove me over and we end up in the single worst place you could possibly have sent us to."</p><p>"I don't know how," Glimmer answered. "I was just so... Angry, I suppose." Catra snorted.</p><p>"Yeah, I got <i>that</i>. I just didn't know that princesses could glitch from too much stress. I might have gone about things differently if I knew."</p><p>"I didn't know either. As far as I know, nothing like that has ever happened before."</p><p>"Lucky me to be around for the debut, then. It would sure be useful intel if we could bring it back home. It's not like it's going to do them a lot of good once we are dead." Glimmer looked up at her.</p><p>"This place scares you that much, huh?" she asked carefully. Catra gave her a look full of hate.</p><p>"If it doesn't scare you it's because you are an idiot."</p><p>"How bad could it be? It's an island, right? We make a signal, wait for a ship." Catra rolled her eyes.</p><p>"No ship come near Beast Island."</p><p>"All right... so we'll have to wait for a while. We can build a shelter. Get food. Figure out a way to get a message out."</p><p>"We'll get eaten by a monster long before then."</p><p>"Well... perhaps we could..."</p><p>"Of all the things I hate with you, that optimism is perhaps the most disgusting." Despite the gravity of their situation, Glimmer found it within herself to give Catra a little smirk.</p><p>"Well, we didn't beat you guys just by waiting for you to roll us over, did we?" That one actually got a little chuckle out of Catra.</p><p>"You didn't 'beat us'. You just stopped us that one time..."</p><p>"Uhuh, those <i>two</i> times." Catra rolled her eyes again</p><p>"But you're all defense. Nothing's stopping us from coming up with a new trick for the next round. You have to be lucky every time. We only need to be lucky once." Her face soured. "...that is, <i>your pathetic little alliance</i> has to be lucky every time and the <i>Horde</i> only needs to be lucky once. That has nothing to do with us any longer. Because we will be dead."</p><p>Glimmer gave her a worried look.</p><p>"You really think we are not coming back?</p><p>"<i>Yes</i>, princess," Catra snarled. "Because <i>you</i> have sent us to a place which will kill us. I hope you are proud of yourself."</p><p>"Well, maybe I am," Glimmer bit back. feeling the blood trickle down her wounded arms. "At least this way you won't be able to hurt anyone again." Catra took a step closer to her.</p><p>"I could always hurt you,"</p><p>"Hah, I'd like to see you try." Catra snorted and gave Glimmer a rough shove.</p><p>"Come on. Let's move. No sense in making things easy for the monsters."</p><p>Glimmer got to her feet, rubbing the shoulder where Catra had pushed her.</p><p>"See who isn't giving up now!"</p><p>"Shut it, Sparkles."</p><p>They walked for a while along the beach. They did not discuss where they were going or what they were going to do once they got there. Also, they did not comment on the fact that Catra did not seem to feel the need to keep Glimmer tied up any longer. Did that mean she was not a prisoner any more?</p><p>Or did it simply mean that they both were?</p><p>They walked in silence, listening to the droning noise from somewhere inland on the island.</p><p>Eventually they rested by an old tree trunk that had fallen over the beach, creating a natural shelter. Catra started a fire and they boiled water from a nearby stream. Glimmer cleared away some vines that seemed interested in them.</p><p>"We could try fishing?" Glimmer suggested. Catra shook her head.</p><p>"Not a good idea, unless you want the razor-fins to get a meal."</p><p>"Razor-fins?"</p><p>"Even the fish around here wants to kill you, Sparkles."</p><p>"You really had a lot of time for ghost stories in the Horde, didn't you?" Catra gave her a level look.</p><p>"Those were cautionary tales. They warned us about things that would kill us. Razor-fins. Giant Monsters. Mad, malfunctioning princesses... can't exactly say they didn't deliver."</p><p>"Listen..." Glimmer said hesitantly. "I'm sorry. I never meant to..."</p><p>"To kill me?" Catra cut her off. "Funny, by the look on your face back then it certainly seemed like you did. Trust a princess to find the most convoluted way to make it happen, though."</p><p>"No, not that... well, OK, that too, but... I lied to you."</p><p>"Yeah?"</p><p>"About Adora... she... she left the horde, Hordak, Shadow Weaver... but never you. "</p><p>Catra froze. Glimmer did a rueful little gesture.</p><p>"She's been crying over you at night, when she thinks I'm sleeping. She would take you back in an instant if..."</p><p>"Shut up."</p><p>"Sorry, I just wanted to..."</p><p>"<i>Shut up!</i>" Catra stood up with a snarl. Glimmer scrambled to her feet. Catra took a step closer, her angry face filling Glimmer's vision.</p><p>"You are not allowed to talk about Adora. You are not allowed to tell me what she's thinking, like you'd know. In fact, princess, you'll just shut up altogether." Glimmer felt her cheeks heat up.</p><p>"Oh, and why is that? Afraid you won't like what you hear?"</p><p>"You don't scare me, princess," Catra hissed.</p><p>"Oh yeah?" Glimmer mocked. "Cause you sure looks like a scaredy-cat to me. 'Ooooh watch out for the fish'. 'Oooooh, that mean princess will spray glitter on me, whatever am I gonna doooo?'"</p><p>"SHUT UP!"</p><p>They watched each other in silence for a heartbeat. They both stood prepared for a fight. Catra's claws where out. Glimmer quickly scanned the surroundings and saw a stick that would make a passable quarter staff. Through the sound of blood rushing in her ears she could hear a part of her reminding her that she had very little to gain, and a whole lot to loose from a fight. The smart thing to do right now would be to back down.</p><p>"You must have felt so big, with Adora backing you up," Catra hissed. "Finally people listened to you, respected you. Well, she's not here any more. Just you and me, little runt. Just your little pathetic self." Glimmer felt her blood boil.</p><p>"I'm not pathetic," she snarled. She snagged the stick and attempted a swipe at Catra. She jumped aside with contemptuous ease.</p><p>"Oh! That struck a nerve." Catra laughed, a nasty little laugh. "What. You did not seriously believe anyone actually thought <i>you</i> amounted to something. You were just Adora's hangaround, that's all." Glimmer tried another thrust. She actually managed a glancing blow on Catra's leg, but that gave Catra an opening to scratch her arm. She gritted her teeth.</p><p>"Speaking from experience, I take it? I bet you have earned a looot of respect in the Horde without Adora coddling you." Catra barred her teeth and charged at her. Glimmer jumped to the side and manage to trip Catra up as she past. Glimmer quickly followed up and gave Catra a painful blow in her back before she managed to get away.</p><p>"You don't know what you're talking about?"</p><p>"Don't I?" Glimmer mocked. "She has talked a lot about you these past months. After all..." she dragged out the sentence. "She chose me over you."</p><p>Catra made a sound that was pure animal and charged again. This time Glimmer didn't have time to side step but was forced to retreat. Catra's claws took large chunks out of the stick.</p><p>"I will kill you," Catra snarled.</p><p>"Not if I kill you first," Glimmer answered in kind.</p><p>Their eyes met.</p><p>Neither backed off.</p><p>The part of Glimmer that was not furious seriously doubted she would survive the next few minutes. Even at the best of times, Glimmer was hardly a match for Catra in a fight. Without magic... she narrowly dodged a blow and jumped backwards.</p><p>Catra was faster than her, stronger than her and perfectly willing to hurt her... maybe even kill her, by the looks of it. Glimmer on the other hand...</p><p>...had based her entire fighting style on a teleportation and sparkles she did not have access to. She was hungry, thirsty and tired to the bone. And Catra knew it.</p><p>So...</p><p>Um...</p><p>Catra did not expect her to be a serious challenge. That was something.</p><p>Sadly, neither did Glimmer.</p><p>It all boiled down to a very simple choice. Run away (she probably couldn't), throw herself at Catra's mercy (she'd probably give it, but not until she had taken a fair share of blood from Glimmer) or fight until she was seriously hurt, possibly dead. Her best bet was to give up.</p><p>That was all rational, analytical. Strategical. But even as she thought it, Glimmer found herself crouching down to avoid a kick, drop the ruined stick and pick up a small rock at the same time. When Catra followed up the kick with a punch she was ready to dodge and then bring down the rock with all her might on Catra's head.</p><p>
  <i>Pathetic.</i>
</p><p>Glimmer would show her pathetic.</p><p>Catra deflected the blow, but that put her on the defense, and Glimmer attacked again with a fury that took both of them by surprise. By forcing Catra to doge she kept her moving backwards, towards the water. Catra took notice, and as she glanced backwards Glimmer aimed a kick at Catra's legs, and in the last minute changed it to a punch instead. The rock caught Catra on the arm and she screamed in rage. She hit Glimmer hard in the chest with a kick of her own and Glimmer sunk down on the sand, wheezing hard.</p><p>"Nice try, princess," Catra snarled and lounged at her, fangs first. As she was almost upon her, Glimmer sprung up from her crouched position, far less affected by the blow than she had pretended, and threw a handful of sand in Catra's face.</p><p>"Sparkle, sparkle," She growled and tackled the sputtering Catra as hard as she could, causing both of them to stumble out in the water.</p><p>
  <i>How's that for all defense?</i>
</p><p>The water was not deep, but the rocks were sharp. Glimmer could feel Catra's whole body tense and she desperately tried to get up. Glimmer didn't let her. She grabbed Catra's head and smashed it downwards as hard as she could, managing to keep it under water for a few terrible moments until Catra tore free and gasped for air. Glimmer threw down her elbow on Catra's stomach, causing her to bend double. Glimmer took the opportunity to push her deeper out into the water.</p><p>"Not as easy as you thought it would be, is it?"</p><p>They were both covered with wounds from the rocks and the salty water made each cut burn like fire. Catra managed to tear herself free and looked around in panic.</p><p>"The razor-fins," she gasped between her desperate struggle for air Glimmer sneered at her.</p><p>"Big bad cat afraid of stories?"</p><p>"They are not stories!" Catra tried to get past Glimmer, towards land, but Glimmer sidestepped her and - grabbing her and using her full weight - pushed her down in the water again. Catra screamed in fear and rage.</p><p>Glimmer struggled to hold Catra down, to prevent her from using her claws. She hardly felt the first bite, just a little nibble easily mistaken for a sharp rock. But then she felt another. And another. She dared a glance in the water and saw a quick flash of something small and silvery. She then saw several of the sharp-toothed fish in the water, and they seemed to grow more numerous by the minute.</p><p>"Let me go you maniac," Catra cried. "They'll kill us both!"</p><p>"That's the plan, kitty," Glimmer panted and pushed Catra back in the water. She felt the bites but ignored them. Somewhere in the back of her mind she questioned her actions, reminded herself that technically a fight where the opponent <i>didn't</i> get up again only counted as a win as long as you yourself <i>did</i>. But she didn't care. There was just so much rage.</p><p>
  <i>Who is helpless now? Who is pathetic now?</i>
</p><p>Catra was squirming like an eel to get free and fought the razor-fins as much as she did Glimmer. Glimmer felt around and found another rock. She raised it high and got a good hit on Catra's shoulder. Catra screamed and raised her hands, but the fish immediately attacked again. Catra jerked and moved her hands and Glimmer saw her chance and smashed the rock with all her might towards Catra's face.</p><p>
  <i>I wish you were dead.</i>
</p><p>Everything had been happening so quickly, but suddenly Glimmer had all the time in the world.</p><p>She watched herself holding the rock.</p><p>Watched herself smashing it towards Catra's face.</p><p>She saw the fear in Catra's eyes.</p><p>Idly she realized that after all this time fighting the horde, she had actually never killed anyone. Bots, sure. People? No.</p><p>
  <i>I wish you were dead.</i>
</p><p>...Did she? Truly?</p><p>With a sob of frustration she changed her aim in the last second and the rock splashed down in the water. She flopped off Catra and sagged down in the water, ignoring the fish that now came at her in large numbers, suddenly all fight gone.</p><p>Catra was motionless for a heartbeat or two, looking at Glimmer with large eyes. Then she snarled and jumped to her feet. Grabbing Glimmer by her clothes she dragged her to the shore and threw her on the ground, then she sank down to the sand herself.</p><p>For a long time they just laid there, panting.</p><p>They were both covered in wounds. Blood, salt water and sand mingling.</p><p>In her mind, Glimmer could see the fear in Catra's eyes as the rock came closer.</p><p>No, not the rock. <i>Glimmer</i>. As <i>she</i> came closer to kill Catra.</p><p>
  <i>I wish you were dead.</i>
</p><p>"Useless, useless, useless," Catra growled. "Pathetic as a kidnapper, pathetic as kidnapped, you can't even kill me right."</p><p>"You're welcome," Glimmer shot back defensively. Catra shot her a look of pure hatred and staggered to her feet.</p><p>"I should just kill you now and be done with it."</p><p>"I'm not stopping you," Glimmer said and realized that it was true. Her whole body hurt, and she felt she was beginning to shake as the fury left her. She just wanted to stay here in the sand. Catra snarled.</p><p>"What's the use? Stay here and die yourself for all I care." She turned around and started to walk away along the beech. Glimmer propped up on her elbows.</p><p>"Hey, where are you going?"</p><p>"Away. Gotta be a way off this rock somehow."</p><p>"What about me?"</p><p>"Why don't you just teleport home, <i>princess</i>?" Glimmer could feel the rage flaring up again.</p><p>"Fine, leave. See if I care."</p><p>Catra didn't answer. She kept walking, and just a few steps later she was out of sight. Glimmer groaned and flopped down on the sand again.</p><p>
  <i>I wish you were dead.</i>
</p><p>Well, she was likely to get her wish granted.</p><p>It didn't feel like a victory.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>That turned ugly fast</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. All Alone</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Warning: Themes of depression and hardship.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>How long she stayed on the beech, Glimmer didn't know. The sun had begun to set before she shivering stood up and walked back to the treeline.</p><p>On the plus side, she was not a prisoner any longer and no one was actively trying to kill her.</p><p>On the minus side... everything else.</p><p>She was cold, wounded, tired, hungry, thirsty, alone, trapped, miserable and was most likely to be eaten by a monster before the night was over.</p><p>Shelter. She needed shelter. She knew there were plenty of machinery up in the woods. Perhaps she could find somewhere to squeeze in. She heard rustle of leaves and pressed herself against a tree trunk. There were noises of something small passing by - or possibly something big and stealthy. </p><p>For a moment she thought it might be Catra that came back, but if it was she wouldn't hear her, right? </p><p>She watched the undergrowth with beating heart, but Catra didn't emerge from the bushes.</p><p>She crept on and found a passable shelter under an old wreck of a machine of some sort. She peered inside and did not find anything horrible waiting for her. Shivering she curled up to a ball, and somehow managed to fall into an uneasy sleep.</p><p>Glimmer was no stranger to sleeping outdoors. She had fond memories of hikes with Bow and (lately) Adora, and earlier of camping trips with her dad and auntie Castaspella.</p><p>The crucial difference now was that she did not have Bow or Adora or Micah or Castaspella. She had no one but herself.</p><p>She did not know how much time had passed as she woke up. Her entire body hurt and she felt feverish. Vines had grown over her, partly covering her. She tore free and forced herself to get up and massage some life back into her limbs. Something large moved crablike over the ground a few steps from her, and she waited in silence until it was gone. Her mouth felt like sand paper.</p><p>The noise from the island was louder than she had ever heard it before.</p><p>Water. She needed water. She found a small stream dripping from a cliff that didn't look too icky. She ripped a piece of cloth from her dress and filtered it into a bent piece of metal, then she hesitated.</p><p>She should boil it, right?</p><p>Well, that shouldn't be too hard. Just some sparkles and... nothing. She reached for her magic and it just wasn't there.</p><p>By now she should have regained at least something.</p><p>Was she too far from the moonstone, or had she truly broken something?</p><p>
  <i>I have taken you somewhere where you will never hurt anyone again.</i>
</p><p>In the end, fire was not as difficult as she feared. The place was littered with old tech, and it was easy to get heat from a power source as long as she didn't mind a few burns in the process.</p><p>
  <i>Look at me now, Bow. I'm quite the maker, aren't I?</i>
</p><p>She teared up as she drank the metallic tasting water, because thinking of Bow just plain <i>hurt</i>. She wouldn't see him again. Or Adora. Or mom. Or the other princesses or... anyone.</p><p>It started to sink in just how lonely she was.</p><p>She managed to find a bush with foul tasting berries. She ate a few, but they did little to avail her hunger, and she didn't like the way they made her tongue numb. She was too exhausted to care about how hungry she was, and she crept back into the shelter. She had to fight off a spider that apparently shared her idea of a good spot for sleeping. Her fever felt worse now.</p><p>She cried herself to sleep that night, and the next, and the next, and the next. That was about when she lost count.</p><p>Glimmer was alone on Beast island. This was the worst part of her life.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>:-(</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. The worst part</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Warning: Themes of depression and hardship.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Glimmer was miserable. She had been alone before, the bad old days in Brightmoon before Bow, but that had still been alone among people (and, she realized now with a growing sense of longing - with her mother). This was something else. This was being totally alone. No one to talk to, no one to relate to, no one to fight with, no one to... anything to. She strongly suspected she would go crazy if the island didn't kill her first - which it probably would.</p><p>She kept on the move. She soon realized that re-using old shelters was a surefire way of handing the monsters a snack served and ready. Sometimes she found hiding places in old machinery, sometimes she had to to with a crack between some rocks. She rarely got more than a few hours sleep until something interrupted her and forced her to run again. She ate... bugs, mostly. Some of the plants had roots that filled her stomach, but they had a bitter taste and didn't to much to give her actual nourishment. She tried to catch fish a few times, but they got more bites out of her than she got from them.</p><p>And all the time, the noise of beast island droned on. Louder and louder.</p><p>It was the... fifth or possibly sixth day after Catra left when Glimmer found the emitter. It was embedded in what looked like an old vehicle, and it buzzed slightly in an uneven rhythm. Every time the the pitch increased, the surrounding light dimmed. Glimmer watched it thoughtfully. She had payed enough attention to Bow to know what that meant - a signal of the same kind he could pick up with his sensors.</p><p>A signal...</p><p>It took her an hour or so two find or make suitable tools to pry the emitter lose, and then she had to hide for a while as a beast slithered by. When she dared to get back to the site she prodded with the emitter a bit and - yes - she remembered correctly. Just a tiny adjustment to the connection to the power source and she could affect the rhythm of the signal.</p><p>A small spark of hope lit up deep inside her.</p><p>Most of her days were spent merely surviving. Water, food, shelter, tend her wounds, clear vines, flee monsters... Every day was a fight just to remain functional, and even for all of that she felt herself grow weaker.</p><p>But Glimmer had a project, a plan, something that gave her hope. Even in her dark moments (and they were plentiful) when she doubted the signal would ever work, she recognized the need for something to keep her focused, to keep her sane.</p><p>It was really easy to slip away from functionality on Beast Island.</p><p>So in stolen moments she toiled with the machine. She had no tools, no workshop and no experience other than a few half forgotten memories of things Bow tried to teach her as she loudly complained and tried her best to distract him from the lessons.</p><p>
  <i>Bow...</i>
</p><p>She forced herself to focus on her work.</p><p>To begin with she could carry her equipment with her, but as it grew she had to stove it away in an old ruin. She had to be careful not to visit to often or she feared it would attract monsters, so she started making prototypes of the ideas she was after, scattering them around the landscape as she tested different ideas, learnt new techniques and found ways to bend the impossibly old technology to her wishes. Only then did she dare short visits to her emitter to implement new designs.</p><p>
  <i>Entrapta would be proud of me</i>
</p><p>Ouch. The guilt tore into her like a knife. Entrapta had betrayed them. She hadn't yet allowed herself to process it properly. She could only imagine what the Horde had done to her to make hur turn her back to the alliance.</p><p>Or even worse, what if they hadn't had to do anything to her? What if the princess alliance did not mean more to her than a fleeting thought, easily discarded. What if they other princesses felt the same? Had they just been humoring Glimmer that whole time? Sure, they had come to Brightmoon's defense, but...</p><p>Glimmer forced herself not to think of it. At least she was not there to cause further damage to the alliance. They had She-Ra, her mom was still in charge. Surely everyone was better off without her pretending to know what she was doing.</p><p>She only hoped Bow had managed to get away from Scorpia and the other Horde soldiers, because if he hadn't...</p><p>The guilt hit full force again.</p><p>The signal of Beast Island droned on and on and on.</p><p>- - -</p><p>A cold mist rolled in, and for days Glimmer was wet and cold no matter how long she clung to the old fuel cells in the first one's ruins. She forced herself to stay on the move, forcing her body to produce its own heat. She desperately needed food and had to resort to even more slimy, disgusting sources. The fever went down after a few days, but in its place she got a dry cough that made it harder for her to sleep. Her throat felt raw.</p><p>Her clothes were soon nothing but scraps, but she managed to compensate with plant fiber, shredded monster skin and old rubbish she found among the ruins.</p><p>But all the time, she kept working on her signal beacon. Once she had figured out how to modulate the signal, she needed to amplify it. In the end it didn't turn out to be very hard, just amass enough functional circuitry in the proper positions around the emitter. She spent ages working out the proper sequence, the proper placements, how different piece of old tech interacted with each other, all the time on the run from monsters, all the time battling her own failing health and mental deterioration.</p><p>So many times she felt it was all hopeless, was so ready to give up, but the thought of Adora and Bow kept her at it. She knew, <i>knew</i> that they were doing anything they could to save her, and she would be damned if she didn't do her part. They would have a signal, and she would not give up.</p><p>
  <i>I have taken you somewhere where you will never hurt anyone again.</i>
</p><p>She would NOT give up.</p><p>Finally she was ready to put everything to work. She had managed to make the emitter send a short pulse of signals of the kind sailors used to communicate over long distances (thanks, Bow, and his fascination with pirates). It was just a few simple pulses but their meaning was known to everyone at sea. "Help. Distress. Rescue needed."</p><p>When she put up the distress beacon in Brightmoon the princesses had come for her. Would she be that lucky again?</p><p>When Glimmer finally got the emitter working she put a metal plate next to it and scratched in a short message.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p><br/>
GLIMMER<br/>
BRIGHTMOON<br/>
</p>
</div>She hesitated, and then she added<div class="center">
  <p>
CATRA<br/>
FRIGHT ZONE<br/>
</p>
</div>After that, it was quite some time before she could get back to work on the amplifiers. Gradually, the monsters became more numerous and more aggressive. She was sure Perfuma would tell her something interesting about seasonal migration patterns if she were here, but...<p>...but she wasn't.</p><p>Glimmer had to spend more time hiding now, but at least she ate better when the monsters more often killed each other, and she could snatch a few pieces before the scavengers picked the bodies clean.</p><p>She was gradually getting stronger, and she was getting better at climbing. It was a poor substitute for teleportation, but at least she had the advantage of being used to think in three dimensions. A quick dash up a tree or down a ruin often saved her from the many roaming monsters.</p><p>But sometimes it was a close call. A pair of pincers got her in the leg and she limped for a week. That slowed her down and forced her to be much more careful until she had healed. At another point she fell down the tree and thought she had broken every bone in her body. As luck would have it she got away with a few bruises and a day of rest, but she knew she would not be that lucky every time.</p><p>She wondered how Catra was doing.</p><p>In time she managed to get back to the emitter and place the amplifiers. It was fiddly work, but by and by she got more and more of them in place. She had rigged up a small portable receiver so she could test the signal strength, and was happy to see it grow. The final piece took three days to finish, a gigantic metal sheet lined with old circuitry. When she finally managed to put it in place, the signal was stronger than it had ever been.</p><p>Glimmer had made it work. A rare sense of pride flushed over her.</p><p>She sheltered dangerously close to the beacon that night, and eagerly ran back there in the morning. The signal was still good and strong, but no one was there.</p><p>Obviously.</p><p>Glimmer told herself she had to be patient. She couldn't expect a savior to swoop in the minute she got the signal working (even if said savior <i>did</i> have a flying horse).</p><p>So she waited.</p><p>Patiently.</p><p>It was at least three hours because she ran back to check the signal again.</p><p>The following week was an emotional roller-coaster for Glimmer. She forced herself to stay away from the beacon for fear of attracting monsters there, but every time she heard a rustle she thought it was someone looking for her. She slowly circled the beacon and spend a lot of time in the trees, scanning the area for movement. In the end she dared returning to the beacon.</p><p>Nothing.</p><p>By now the initial excitement had died down, and the realization again started to set in that she was in for the long haul. Even if someone managed to pick up her signal it would be a long time before someone could check on it. After all, there was a war going on. Distress signals such as this was not uncommon.</p><p>Still... sooner or later...</p><p>She worked her way back towards the beach. She took her time - dragged her feet in fact. She knew very well that she would have to keep moving, so she wouldn't be able to stay on the beach. But going down there was the last part of her project. After that all that remained was waiting, for however long that took. And she was self aware enough to know that working on the signal was part of the reason she had made it this far. So even as part of her longed to be down on the shore to look for sails on the horizon, another part dreaded the moment she would realize that there were none.</p><p>It was not as if she expected to see Mermista come strolling up from the waves, but... <i>oh please, oh please, oh please let Mermista stroll up from the waves.</i></p><p>When she finally reached the beach she was almost over herself with nervousness, and even if the anticlimax was expected, it still hit her like a blow when the beach and the horizon were just as empty as last time she was here.</p><p>It was as if her signal didn't exist at all.</p><p>She sighed and spent the day looking or crabs, and even got a few before the razor-fins got wise to her presence. She slept on the beach, and in the first morning light she got up to check the horizon again.</p><p>Nothing, of course.</p><p>She activated her portable receiver with the fussy idea of scanning for answers to her signal - it just stood to reason people on a rescue mission would call ahead, right? That's when she did the discovery.</p><p>No answer, no matter what point of the horizon she pointed the receiver at. Disappointing but hardly surprising. But when she turned the receiver towards land she did not catch the distress signal either. She had seen the signal rise and fall during her testing, but never completely disappearing.</p><p>She tried a new spot, and a new, and a new. But however she tried, she never picked up the faintest trace. Only the ubiquitous noise of the signal of Beast Island.</p><p>She rushed inland. In her heart, she already knew the answer, but she had to make sure. Surely, this was just a technical problem. One of her amplifiers had been knocked over by the wind, or the passing monster, or a connector had come loose. Easy problem. Easy fix. Right?</p><p>But a after a few hours walk she started to pick up the signal again. Faint at first, stronger the closer the beacon she came.</p><p>Glimmer sank down to her knees. She sat there for she didn't know how long, blood rushing in her ears, vines crawling over her. The beacon worked. The signal was as amplified as she could make it. But it still wasn't enough.</p><p>Glimmer's distress signal did not leave Beast Island. The island's own horrible, persistent noise drowned it out.</p><p>Glimmer was no closer to being rescued now, after weeks of hard work, than she had been the day she first crawled up from the beach.</p><p>She cried bitter tears that night, and the next morning she didn't bother leaving the shelter for several hours. Would it really matter if the vines or the monsters got her at this point?</p><p>- - -</p><p>Eventually she cleared the vines off her and got moving again, because despite everything, Glimmer refused to give up. She never returned to the beacon or the beach. She couldn't stand to face that false hope again.</p><p>Previously she had stayed in the general area where they first had appeared on the island, but now she walked wide and far. To begin with she had some loose idea of exploring, of finding new options, but later it just became a habit. It didn't matter where she was, so she could just as well be somewhere else.</p><p>She had no longer a project to keep her going, a hope to cling to. She walked wherever her feet took her, did what she had to survive and fully expected she wouldn't make it.</p><p>She probably wouldn't have, alone</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Jeeez, author. Stop being a jerk to Glimmer.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. The cat came back.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was long since Glimmer lost track of days and weeks and months. She did not know how long since she gave up on the emitter, how long since Catra left her and for how long she had been on the island. </p><p>At least she had a morning routine now. Routines were important. Wake up, cry, remove the vines, cry, check clothes for bugs, wack bugs with stick, select the least disgusting ones to eat, almost throw up, cry, see if something were trying to kill her, run, hide, cry...</p><p>She had got to the 'cry'-part of the day when she sensed something was different. She looked up and saw Catra sitting on a log some distance away, regarding her in silence.</p><p>"Hey, Sparkles," she said with subdued voice. Glimmer's eyes teared up.</p><p>"Ca... Catra?" she whispered. "You came back?"</p><p>Catra seemed to struggle with herself, then she simply nodded. Glimmer walked up to her and sat down on the other end of the log.</p><p>Catra was almost in as bad shape as Glimmer. Her fur was dirty and full of snags. Her eyes were hollow. She was skinnier than she used to. They sneaked glances at each other, neither daring to speak.</p><p>"So.... Is it OK with you if we don't kill each other right now?" Glimmer asked, tentatively. Catra snorted.</p><p>"I could have killed you anytime I wanted. What's the point?"</p><p>"I know, right," Glimmer exclaimed, relief in her voice. "Something is bound to do us in around here sooner or later anyway. We don't have to force it." Catra nodded absently.</p><p>"So... you have been doing... OK?" Glimmer asked.</p><p>"Pffft. Yeah. Peachy. I followed the shore for a while. Don't go north, by the way. It's bad over there. Then I tried to find higher grounds... oh yeah, and stay off the mountains. Nothing good there. Then I went inland..." her voice trailed off.</p><p>"I tried that too," Glimmer shuddered.</p><p>"How about you."</p><p>"Fine, just fine. The purple bugs are pretty good if you ever grow tired of the yellow ones. The green dotted ones actually taste great, but you get horrible stomach pains after a while." Catra nodded.</p><p>"Last week I ate five of them! I thought I was going to die afterwards but at the time I just didn't care. I was so desperate for just one decent meal."</p><p>"Hey, I did that too," Glimmer said. "The next day was the worst in my life but..."</p><p>"But you'll totally do it again," Catra finished.</p><p>"Yeah." They chuckled, like you do when you know the joke is on you.</p><p>"Did you run into those one-eyed monsters...?" Glimmer asked. Catra nodded.</p><p>"The Pookas? Yeah. Better stay away from them."</p><p>They shared a moment of silence. Both had been given ample reasons to stay away from the pookas.</p><p>"I found your beacon..." Catra said with quiet voice. Her voice trailed off and she watched Glimmer carefully. Glimmer blinked a few times before she answered.</p><p>"Didn't work... or at least didn't work well enough. No one will hear it off island."</p><p>"I saw you wrote my name on it as well...?"</p><p>"Yeah... I did."</p><p>They shared a long look.</p><p>"Shame it didn't work."</p><p>"Yeah."</p><p>The silence they shared was full of things they didn't say, but not in a bad way.</p><p>"Don't the Horde send prisoners here?" Glimmer asked eventually. "Maybe you could..."</p><p>"Yeah, I thought about that too but it's not like they have a landing site or anything. Still, if I find one of their ships I could try sneak on board, but..."</p><p>"Sneak? Won't they take you back to the Horde?" Catra gave Glimmer a level gaze.</p><p>"No one returns from Beast Island."</p><p>"Oh..."</p><p>"You get that, right? Neither of us is ever getting back." Glimmer shook her head.</p><p>"Adora will save us eventually." Catra made a grimace.</p><p>"Yeah, right. You realize Adora is probably killed by now?" Glimmer snorted.</p><p>"You think the Horde could kill her? Without you? Give me a break. You do realize who she was afraid of every time we went on a mission? It wasn't Scorpia or that shadow witch or even Hordak. It was you."</p><p>Catra's eyes widened.</p><p>"Adora was afraid of... me?"</p><p>"Duh! Without the big bad Catra being three steps ahead at every turn I expect the Horde has packed it up and gone home to the Fright Zone by now."</p><p>"Hardly. Without princess Glimmer holding the princess alliance together I expect them all to sit and mope in their own castles by. Do you realize how close we were to take Plumeria and Salineas? We would have had half the world by now without that annoying, pink princess popping up everywhere with her spiel about alliance and <i>friendship</i>, ruining the day."</p><p>"...me?"</p><p>"YEAH, you. Sure, Adora blew some tanks up, but you were the one who got everyone working together. After the first alliance fell apart we figured it would be easy to roll over you one by one. If it weren't for you, it would have been."</p><p>They watched each other in silence.</p><p>"That... came dangerously close for us to compliment each other."</p><p>"Yeah, it was weird."</p><p>Glimmer shyly put a hand on the log next to Catra.</p><p>"I... kinda liked it."</p><p>"Pffft. Don't get used to it, Sparkles."</p><p>But Catra put her hand on Glimmer's.</p><p>"...tell me more about how Adora is afraid of me?"</p><p>Glimmer laughed and surprised herself with the sound. It was a long time since a sincere laughter was heard on Beast Island.</p><p>After that, things became interesting.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Finally we get some Catra in this Glimmer/Catra story.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. The interesting part</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Warning: Themes of drowning, self harm and post-traumatic stress disorder.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was strange, after all this time, being around another person. Apparently Catra felt the same, because after a little while, sitting on the log, she slunk back into the forest.</p><p>There was a tense moment when she stood in the edge of the clearing, hesitantly looking back. Glimmer felt a pang of anxiety and half-rose from the log, but Catra gave her an unused half-smile. </p><p>"I'll be around, Sparkles," she muttered and Glimmer breathed out.</p><p>She found shelter under a tree that night. She did not know where Catra went, but just knowing she was around felt... exciting. Catra was danger, sure, but not the everyday drudge of harshness that was life on Beast Island. Where the island was slow acting poison, Catra was fire. And Glimmer had been freezing for a long time now. When she woke up in the middle of the night and had to fight off the vines and some spiders, she felt a little tingle of anticipation. Because whatever tomorrow would be, it would not be a day alone.</p><p>Catra sat in the clearing when she woke up. She wordlessly pointed to an old cloth sac filled with water, and Glimmer helped herself.</p><p>"Slept well?" she asked. Catra snorted, and Glimmer chuckled a bit herself.</p><p>
  <i>Oh well, gallows humor is humor too.</i>
</p><p>They watched each other in silence.</p><p>"Why did you not teleport back?" Catra asked eventually with low voice. Glimmer gave her a confused look.</p><p>"What? You know I can't..."</p><p>Catra abruptly stood up and her claws slid out. Glimmer let out a little cry of fear and sprung to her feet.</p><p>"Still?" Catra hissed. "After all this time you still don't have enough sparks to jump us back?"</p><p>"Sorry!" Glimmer cried and took a step back, away from the furious Catra. "I don't have any magic at all. Without the moonstone I can't. Sorry!"</p><p>For a moment it looked like Catra would jump her, but then she sighed and sat down, as abruptly as she had stood up. Her claws slid back in.</p><p>"All right," she sighed with dejected voice. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. Fancy all that bullcrap they fed us in the horde about princesses not being able to control their powers actually being true."</p><p>"Hey, it's not like that," Glimmer bit back, then she hesitated. She sat down again.</p><p>"All right, it kinda is like that," she admitted. "But it's not the other princesses, just me. I'm the weak one."</p><p>"Just my luck," Catra muttered. "Now I get a broken princess. Before it was a mad one." Glimmer felt like a sheet of ice suddenly sliced at her stomach.</p><p>"What?" she demanded.</p><p>"Entrapta," Catra answered, seemingly not noticing Glimmer's agitation. "Half of the time I didn't understand what she said, half of the time she didn't understand what <i>I</i> said. Completely useless most of the time... And then she whipped up an amazing new war machine for us in afternoon... heh," she sniggered. "Do you want to know how we won her over to our side?" The cold spread through Glimmer's body.</p><p>"How?" she whispered.</p><p>"We had robots." Glimmer stared at her. "That's it. She didn't care about sides or rights or winners or losers - she just went to the side with the best toys." She laughed. "So for all that angst you and bow-boy had about abandoning her, she never cared. Not about you, not about us. It was just tech." She sighed. "You were better off without her."</p><p>"Do you think this is funny," Glimmer asked with shaky voice. Catra looked up at her and suddenly seemed to realize the effect her words were having. She shrugged.</p><p>"Doesn't really matter any longer, does it?"</p><p>"It matters to me," Glimmer hissed. Catra met her eyes.</p><p>"All right, all right. I get it. We took one of yours and converted her to our side. Gee, I wonder what that feels like." Glimmer felt her cheeks heat up.</p><p>"Right..." she mumbled.</p><p>They sat in silence for a little while.</p><p>"At least I got you now, princess. Right?" Catra said, her sneer not entirely hiding the uncertainty in her voice. Glimmer met her eyes.</p><p>"Right. Lucky you." Her eye roll didn't quite manage to hide the desperation in <i>her</i> voice.</p><p>"Lucky <i>us</i>," Catra corrected. "We're stuck with each other now."</p><p>"Could be worse," Glimmer said and they met each other's gaze again. Yes, it could be worse.</p><p>They both knew perfectly well how much worse.</p><p>"How comes you are in such a bad shape anyway?" Glimmered asked. "Aren't you supposed to be some sort of tough survivor type? I would have thought this island would be right up your alley. Catra snorted.</p><p>"I'm a survivor, sure. In the Fright Zone where there is food to steal and people to bully. Here there is nothing like that, just... you." Glimmer gave her a sarcastic smile.</p><p>"I guess you'll have to bully me then." Catra smirked.</p><p>"You'd like that, wouldn't you.... All right, princess. You go get me something to eat, this instance." Glimmer rolled her eyes.</p><p>"Yes, oh dangerous apex predator."</p><p>Glimmer found a good prying stick and turned over a rock. She critically eyed the squirming things underneath it.</p><p>"Grub, slug, bug.... oooh here are some purple ones. Breakfast!"</p><p>Catra walked over and looked under the rock in disgust. She took the bug Glimmer gave her and started to chew it with a crunching sound.</p><p>"I find they are easier to eat if you pry open the wings first."</p><p>"Don't care. They're food, that's all."</p><p>Catra finished her bug, spat out the exoskeleton and picked up a green bug from the ground.</p><p>"You know that one is bad for you," Glimmer warned.</p><p>"Don't care." Catra popped it in her mouth and smiled at the taste. She picked up another one.</p><p>Glimmer frowned, then she picked up a green bug too.</p><p>"What are you doing?" Catra asked as Glimmer daintily dissected the disgusting creature.</p><p>"What does it look like? I'm eating." She popped it in her mouth and shuddered slightly.</p><p>"You just said they are not good for you."</p><p>"Well, you just said you don't care, so why should I?" Glimmer picked up another.</p><p>"Stop that!" Catra blurted out.</p><p>"Why?"</p><p>"Because..."</p><p>"What do you care about what happens to me?" Glimmer asked, voice almost steady.</p><p>"Well, what do you care about what happens to <i>me</i>?" Catra shot back</p><p>They stared at each other through red-rimmed eyes. Glimmer put the bug down and it squirmed away on business of it's own. She picked up a yellow bug instead and dissected it.<br/>
   <br/>
"Because someone has to," she answered as she handed Catra the yellow bug. Catra stared at her with hard eyes and didn't answer, but she accepted the food.</p><p>Glimmer smiled, a tired little smile, and gently put a hand on Catra's shoulder.</p><p>"It's OK," she said. "We can..." Catra flinched like Glimmer's hand had been red, hot iron. She took several steps back and looked like she was about to bolt. Glimmer stared at her.</p><p>"What...?"</p><p>"Don't touch me," Catra snarled. Glimmer guiltily snatched her hand back.</p><p>"Sorry, I didn't..."</p><p>"Yeah, that's right. You <i>didn't</i>." Catra took a deep breath and picked up the yellow bug Glimmer had given her. She brushed away some of the dirt and popped it in her mouth.</p><p>"Never mind. Let's just get going." Glimmer gave her a worried look that Catra pointedly ignored.</p><p>They broke camp and walked for a little while. Sometimes they walked together, sometimes they walked apart. They always kept a wary eye on the other, though. Glimmer's belly started to ache from the green bug, but she didn't grumble.</p><p>"Quicksand!" Glimmer warned as they came to a clearing. Catra gave her a disdainful look.</p><p>"This little thing? You must have learnt to spot the safe patches by now." She jumped across the clearing, a few quick steps, each landing on a slightly differently textured spot that marked more solid ground. She turned to look at Glimmer.</p><p>"Your turn, princess."</p><p>"I could just walk around it, you know." Catra's eyes sparkled.</p><p>"Of course you could, but then you would know that <i>I</i> could walk through it and you couldn't."</p><p>"Not everything has to be a competition."</p><p>"Says the looser." Glimmer gritted her teeth and jump into the quicksand, aiming for Catra's footprints.</p><p>It went quite well in the beginning. She followed Catra's footprints halfway through the clearing, then she lost her balance slightly and decided to aim for a closer patch she judged to be safe. She jumped another few steps and was almost catching up with Catra's tracks again - that woman could really jump - but then she misjudged the stability of the spot she jumped to and sunk knee-deep into the quicksand.</p><p>With a frightened yelp she tried to pull herself free, which only led to her other leg sinking deeper. She fumbled for something to hold onto and fell forward. With increasing panic she felt the muck suck her downwards. She looked up at Catra who...</p><p>...who just stood there, a smug smirk on on her lips...</p><p>...fully content watching her sink to her death...</p><p>In full panic Glimmer tried to roll towards the closest safe spot. She managed to get her legs up, but that made her arms sink deeper in the mud. At least she felt the more steady texture of the tuft with her foot. Now if she could only...</p><p>Her head dipped under the surface. She felt the slimy mud enter her ears, her nostrils, her mouth! She forced herself up, but that meant her legs sank deeper. Her arms where already stuck and now she had no leverage as her face came closer to the grime again...</p><p>Catra roughly grabbed her arms and pulled upwards. She had to maneuver between the safe spots, and with Glimmer now being completely rigid with fear it took some doing. But Catra was strong, and in just a few heartbeats they lied safely on the solid ground next to the clearing. Glimmer clung to Catra's leg, fully intent on never letting go.</p><p>"Wow, you OK there, Sparkles?" Catra asked, concern in her voice. Glimmer stared at her.</p><p>"You... saved me?" she panted.</p><p>"Duh, of course I did." Catra sounded genuinely puzzled. "Why wouldn't I?"</p><p>Glimmer did not have an answer to that.</p><p>They rested for a while, then they walked on. Catra sneaked some worried glances at Glimmer that she pretended not to see.</p><p>After awhile they came to a little brook. Glimmer washed herself free from the muck while Catra poked around. There were quite a bit of old tech here. Glimmer thoughtfully examined an old power cell. A mischievous thought took hold.</p><p>"Hey, Catra," I bet you can't jump across the stream. Look! "Glimmer jumped over the water, just making it to the other side. Catra gave her an incredulous look.</p><p>"You must be kidding me." Without even getting a running start, she jumped from where she stood, twice the pace of Glimmer's little skip, and landed in an area free from grass, in the middle of two crude metal pikes sticking up from the ground.</p><p>Glimmer took a dainty little leap back over the stream, and just as Catra turned to give her a smug smile, the brook exploded as the pressure of her steps connected the two power lines Glimmer had rigged up.</p><p>Water, muck and mud flew everywhere and left Catra completely drenched - but otherwise unharmed. Glimmer gave her a coy little smile as Catra's expression changed from smug to frightened to furious.</p><p>"My turn to be the bully," Glimmer said.</p><p>For a moment, Catra looked like she was going to attack, then she shook herself free of water and muck. She gave Glimmer and incredulous look.</p><p>"You actually prepared traps?" Glimmer, not daring to breath, just nodded. Catra scoffed, then started to laugh. Glimmer couldn't help laughing as well. They stood like that in the sun light on opposite sides of the stream, laughing like they were crazy for at least five minutes. Catra shook her head.</p><p>"Not totally useless after all. I start to see how you survived all this time on your own." The unexpected praise made Glimmer's chest suddenly glow with pride, which made her totally unprepared for Catra's next move.</p><p>With quick movements, Catra scrambled up a tree trunk and along the branches. She landed behind Glimmer in a crouch. Glimmer spun around, her back now against the water.</p><p>"Got any other tricks you want to show me, princess," Catra hissed, an edge to her voice. Glimmer took a step back. Catra took a step forward. Without any visible effort, she stuck out a leg and tripped Glimmer over. She landed on her back on the soggy ground.</p><p>"Whatever are you going to do now, princess?" Catra purred and leaned over the fallen princess. Glimmer looked up at her, and suddenly she vividly remembered the last time Catra loomed over her. Claws out, ready to maim or kill, without Glimmer being able to do anything about it.</p><p>
  <i>Pathetic</i>
</p><p>Glimmer shot her an angry look.</p><p>"I'll just have to run away, won't I? You know - like Adora did."</p><p>Catra froze. Anger played over her face. For a terrible moment she did nothing. Then she abruptly stood up, turned around and stalked into the forest. Glimmer scrambled to her feet and looked after her.</p><p>
  <i>Good work, Glimmer. You totally showed her.</i>
</p><p>She cried herself to sleep that night.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>:-(</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. The reconciling part</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Glimmer didn't get much sleep that night. Every time she heard a sound she thought it was Catra who came back. She couldn't decide how the thought made her feel, but every time a twig broke, she rushed up, heart razing.     </p>
<p>Finally she gave up on sleep and made breakfast. One of the bushes had bark that was not completely inedible if you boiled it to mush, and she busied herself with that. She was halfway done when Catra emerged from the forest (without a sound) and sat down on a rock. She didn't say anything.</p>
<p>Glimmer took a breath and...</p>
<p>"No." Catra looked her in the eyes. Glimmer closed her mouth.</p>
<p>"That conversation is over," she went on with measured voice, anger simmering under the surface. Glimmer gave her a long look but didn't say anything.</p>
<p>She finished her preparations in silence with Catra looking everywhere but at her. She scooped up a generous helping of mush on a leaf and hesitantly walked over to Catra. When Catra made no attempt of receiving it from her, Glimmer put in on a log within reach and took a step back. Catra still refused to look at her.</p>
<p>"I'm sorry," Glimmer whispered. Catra's head spun around and her eyes locked on Glimmer's.</p>
<p>"What did you say?" she hissed. Glimmer swallowed.</p>
<p>"I'm sorry," she repeated a bit louder. Catra gave her a withering look.</p>
<p>"You should be," she said. Without breaking eye contact with Glimmer she leaned over and flipped the leaf so the mush fell to the ground with a sad splat.</p>
<p>"Oooops."</p>
<p>Glimmer's shoulders sagged, and she went back to her own spot. She cried silently as she ate her mush. Catra watched her for a little while, then she went back to stare out into the forest instead.</p>
<p>When she couldn't stand it any longer, Glimmer stood up and took her bag. Catra followed her with her gaze. Glimmer glanced at her, then she walked to the edge of the glade, towards the forest. Catra sprung to her feet.</p>
<p>Glimmer kept walking with Catra scrambling after her.</p>
<p>"Where are you going?" </p>
<p>"Away," Glimmer snapped.</p>
<p>"We... you're going uphill for the next camp, right?" Catra asked. Glimmer shrugged, but she did adjust her direction somewhat uphill.</p>
<p>"Will you follow me all day?" she asked after a while.</p>
<p>"What's that to you?" </p>
<p>Glimmer didn't answer.</p>
<p>"You want me to leave, Sparkles, just say the word," Catra finally blurted out.</p>
<p>Glimmer turned to look at Catra but immediately looked away again.</p>
<p>She didn't say anything.</p>
<p>Catra didn't say anything back.</p>
<p>Neither of them tried to meet the other's gaze.</p>
<p>Glimmer made a noise between a sob and a grunt and started to walk again with Catra hoovering around her.</p>
<p>They came upon a patch of forest where the trees had almost completely covered the sky, depriving the undergrowth of light. This made it easier to walk and they kept good pace. At some places, a fallen branch had given another kind of tree the possibility to grow, to shoot up in the air before the canopy closed. Glimmer had seen it before, and her stomach grumbled. The tree had one of the few really tasty fruits she had found on the island. Catra had seen it too, and suddenly she scrambled up the trunk like it had been a ladder. A quick leap, a grab and she landed on the ground, a big, ripe fruit in her hand.</p>
<p>She hesitated for a moment, then another. Then she walked up to Glimmer and held up the fruit.</p>
<p>"Here," she muttered, not looking at the princess. Glimmer made a half strangled sound and after a brief hesitation where neither of them knew were to look, took the fruit.</p>
<p>"Thanks," she mumbled.</p>
<p>"Whatever..." Catra muttered.</p>
<p>Glimmer took the sharp metal shard she used as a pocket knife and deftly divided the fruit in two. She handed one half back to Catra. For a few very tense moments neither moved, then Catra took her half of the fruit. Their eyes met briefly. Catra made a small grunt, and they both ate their fruits as the tension left the moment.</p>
<p>It was the best thing Glimmer had eaten since she came to Beast Island.</p>
<p>- - -</p>
<p>They spent most of that day in silence, walking some distance from each other in the same general direction. They kept exchanging glances when they thought the other wasn't looking.</p>
<p>"Stop!" Catra cried. Glimmer froze in mid step. Catra nodded to an old piece of machinery, partly hidden under the vegetation. "Zapper," she explained. Glimmer exhaled.</p>
<p>"No, that one is safe." She took a few steps to prove her point. Catra narrowed her eyes.</p>
<p>"How did you know?" Glimmer pointed at a metallic tendril leading from the machinery.</p>
<p>"Steady blinking light. If there's an energy surge the pattern would be more pulsating or unsteady." She walked up to it and knocked her knuckles on it. "There're other tells too. If you hear a high pitch sound you should stay away... if the grass grows differently around it you might want to watch out... oh, and a dead animal is a dead give away."</p>
<p>Catra gave Glimmer a penetrating stare for a few moments.</p>
<p>"How do you know all this?"</p>
<p>"Huh? I... just pay attention, I suppose. I salvage from the old tech, and then you learn pretty quickly what's safe and what's not."</p>
<p>They went on for a while in a thoughtful silence. Catra pointed to another old piece of equipment.</p>
<p>"What about that one? No light."</p>
<p>"I would at least throw a rock first. You see those cables? It's connected to something underground. You don't know how much energy is stored down there."</p>
<p>"How about that one?" she pointed at a wrecked vehicle.</p>
<p>"No way. See the light blinking in those panels? There's an energy surge there just waiting to happen."</p>
<p>"And that?" she pointed at what looked like an old piece of industry equipment. Glimmer studied it carefully.</p>
<p>"Safe!" Catra crossed her arms.</p>
<p>"Oh yeah, if it's so safe, why don't you touch it then?" Glimmer shrugged.</p>
<p>"OK." She walked up to the old drill and reached out her hand.</p>
<p>"NO!" Catra cried. Glimmer turned and arched an eyebrow. Catra fiddled a bit, then exhaled.</p>
<p>"All right, I believe you. You don't have to prove it."</p>
<p>"If you say so."</p>
<p>The silence was less tense after that.</p>
<p>Eventually they decided on a camp site. A short, shared glance for confirmation and they both put down their bundles in a little glade.</p>
<p>They both busied themselves with what by now was routine practice for both of them - trample down the undergrowth, clear away vines, check for dangerous bugs, check for edible bugs, put some dry twigs at strategic points to get a few moments of warning if something tried to sneak up on them, filter water, some light maintenance of clothes and gear, all the time sneaking glances at one another, all the time taking care not to get in each other's way.</p>
<p>Catra surprised Glimmer by putting together a proper fire. Smoldering logs and a ring of stones and everything. Glimmer eagerly drank in the heat and even Catra didn't feel the need to pretend it wasn't' enjoyable.</p>
<p>They did not talk much - neither felt confident in their ability not to say the wrong thing. They did a lot of communication by the things they <i>didn't</i> say, though. No insults, no threats, even the sarcastic remarks were kept to a minimum. Most of all, neither said anything that could be read as asking for the other to leave.</p>
<p>They did not want to be alone again.</p>
<p>Glimmer sighed contently and stared into the flames. Catra's tail snaked close to her, and without thinking she put a hand on it. Catra grew rigid, and Glimmer snatched her hand away. She looked up at Catra, face frozen in apologetic shock.</p>
<p>Catra didn't look furious or frightened this time however. She just looked startled. After a moment's hesitation she gave Glimmer a very short nod and moved her tail slightly, touching Glimmer's hand. Glimmer let out her breath and dared a little pat. Catra rolled her eyes and looked away. But she didn't move the tail.</p>
<p>To begin with, glimmer just patted the tail, then she started to work through snags and tangles. she picked up a thorned twig from the ground and used it as a comb, briefly meeting Catra's gaze to check for permission. Soon she worked herself up from the tail to Catra's main body. Her fur was a mess, and Glimmer had her work cut out. But it felt so good just to be able to touch someone again. Catra herself had her gaze firmly fixed on the fire, and if Glimmer didn't know better, she could swear Catra had to check herself not to start purring. It took Glimmer an hour to work through the worst parts and by then the fire had burnt down. She stood up and stretched. Catra looked at her.</p>
<p>"Thanks," she said as if the monosyllabic word was in a foreign language, then she jumped, straight up, and landed on a low branch. She sent down a vine to Glimmer.</p>
<p>"Why don't you sleep up here tonight? Fewer bugs."</p>
<p>The next day, Catra did not throw away her breakfast.</p>
<p>- - -</p>
<p>Glimmer was scouting ahead for the next camp site when she suddenly realized everything around her had gone quiet. No insects, no birds, no movement, only the ubiquitous background noise of the signal. She forced herself to grow still and control her breathing. She glanced around but didn't see anything unusual.</p>
<p>After a few heartbeats she dared a few steps and pressed against a tree trunk. The moment after, the forest exploded in a cacophony of sounds as something large crashed down from the canopies and landed right on the spot where she just had stood. It was the size of a horse and segmented like a large isopod, but with a soft snail-like head where large eye stalks protruded in every direction. Sharp legs clawed against the soil, one of them brushing against Glimmer's leg. She pressed closer against the tree, and for a few, terrible moments the monster did not seem to notice her.</p>
<p>Glimmer dared a short, shallow breath, but just as she did one of the eyes lit up and turned in her direction. Immediately the other eyes also turned to her. Glimmer started to run at the same time as the monster</p>
<p>She ran behind the trees and down a small slope. She heard the monster crash after her, and she tried a feint, ran up a few steps and grabbed a vine to to climb up the trees. But the monster cut the vine with one of it's legs and she tumbled down the slope, painfully crashing into the old metal carcass of a broken machine. The beast scrambled after her and Glimmer forced herself to jump to her feet. She ran alongside the ditch with the monster in hot pursuit.</p>
<p>A rock blocked her path. Glimmer snatched up a metal rod and scrambled up the slope until she heard the monster almost be upon her, then she twirled around and used the rod to deflect the legs as she kept backing up the slope. She frantically looked around. She needed options. She needed a way out. She needed...</p>
<p>Catra landed on the head of the beast and with one swipe from her claws took out several of the eye stalks. She jumped off and landed on the other side of the slope, lashing out at the beast and causing it to turn around, all its remaining eyes fixed on her. With a growl Catra slid down the slope and managed to slip past the legs, procuring a few painful cuts in the process, and ripped at the soft underbelly of the beast. She ran on all fours up the ditch and turned to bare her teeth, luring the beast further away from Glimmer. As it got closer she jumped straight for the head and clawed at its eyes again in animal fury. The beast let out a gurgling sound and ineffectively swiped at her with its legs. It tried to follow her with its remaining eye, but next time Catra went for its throat it was caught off guard, and in just a few moments it was over.</p>
<p>Everything had happened so fast. Glimmer could only stare.</p>
<p>"Tha-thank you Catra," she gasped. Catra spun around, claws still out and her face was furious. Glimmer instinctively tried to back away, but the next instant Catra was in her face. A hand shot out towards her throat, but in the last instance Catra stopped herself and took a small step back. She clenched her fists so her knuckles whitened and held them firmly towards her sides.</p>
<p>"Don't you ever do that again," Catra hissed. "Don't you ever <i>dare</i> leave me alone again." Then she abruptly turned around and stalked away in fury.</p>
<p>Things became... less bad after that.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>This chapter and the one before took the longest time to write. I just wanted for them to get to the camp-fire cuddles, but every time I stopped to ask myself "What would Glimmer do" or "What would Catra do", the answer turned out to be "something hurtful", and I had to add three more paragraphs to sort out the fallout.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. The less bad part</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Warning: Themes of depression and co-dependence.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They did not really discuss it, but gradually a new routine grew up. Glimmer collected food as Catra put up camp. More often than not in the trees. She knew all kinds of clever tricks that prevented the bugs and the beasts from getting to you, and Glimmer more and more often got more than a few hours sleep at the time.</p>
<p>Catra started to eat better when she allowed Glimmer time to prepare the food rather than just snag a bug as she walked and pop it in her mouth. Remove the legs, fry the wings, ferment the innards... Glimmer was coming up with all sort of ideas for how to make the food at least marginally less disgusting and she was really proud of herself.</p>
<p>Of course sometimes things were... less less bad. A thoughtless word, an intended provocation, a mistake, the general  frustration of their situation... Catra stormed off and was gone for days at the time. Sometimes Glimmer did instead. Sometimes they stayed, but in that sort of ice cold silence that would have made leaving in a huff the more tolerable alternative - which was why neither did.</p>
<p>But by an unspoken agreement they did not attack each other again. However bad things got, they both knew that there were no margins for error on Beast Island. If they were to fight, most likely one of them - or both - would die. From a crushed skull or from an infected flesh wound, it wouldn't matter. Fighting would mean risking being alone again, and neither of them dared to risk that.</p>
<p>One day Glimmer strolled back to camp to find Catra had brought some pieces of old metal sheets and beaten out a set of fully functional pots and pans, which greatly improved the range of their cooking capabilities. Glimmer squealed with delight of the thought of roasted maggots as Catra did a great show of presenting the pots to her as flippantly as she could, pretending not to care about her reaction and then stealing glances of her the rest of the evening to see if she liked them as Glimmer hummed and sang as she tested them out.</p>
<p>A few days after that, Glimmer made pie. Real pie made of real berries and real eggs (insect eggs, but still!). It was warm and sweet and hardly disgusting at all. Catra took a suspicious bite, and then immediately a larger piece. After they finished the pie, they sat together on a log and watched the fire in silence. It was quite a small log so they had to sit close to each other, but the other log was all the way over there and neither felt the need to move.</p>
<p>It was all getting quite domestic. Sometimes it was hard to remember that they were supposed to hate each other.</p>
<p>Other times, though...</p>
<p>"What is it to you where I was?"</p>
<p>"I was worried sick! You didn't even tell me you left. Don't you even care?"</p>
<p>"Of course I don't care, you know that. You don't care about me so why should I care about you!"</p>
<p>"Don't tell me what I'm thinking."</p>
<p>And then...</p>
<p>"No wonder Adora left you!"</p>
<p>or</p>
<p>"No wonder the other princesses didn't trust you!"</p>
<p>And things were bad again.</p>
<p>There was the one time Glimmer climbed up the tree as usual, to the little nook Catra had prepared for them. And climbed on. Not far, just a few branches, but she picked her own spot that night, very pointedly not looking at Catra as she did, and lay down to sleep with her face firmly buried against the trunk. Catra watched her in silence with unblinking eyes. She kept the silence for three days after that.</p>
<p>Then there was that time when Glimmer came back to the camp after an extended sulk and one of the pans was missing.</p>
<p>All the others were where she left them, but that one...</p>
<p>It's not like she needed it. Not really. The others worked as well.</p>
<p>But...</p>
<p>It was one of the few things she owned. One of the very few things that helped make a difference against the horribleness of everyday life that was Beast Island.</p>
<p>And Catra had made it for her.</p>
<p>And now it was gone.</p>
<p>She looked up at Catra who watched her in silence, her expression grim.</p>
<p>She felt like she should be mad... shout, fight, accuse, attack... but she couldn't remember how one got about such things.</p>
<p>She felt like she should leave in a huff. Bright indignation burning like a flame, keeping her warm, keeping her going. But there was nothing there. No hate. No indignation. Only...</p>
<p>Without noticing it Glimmer had sunk down to her knees. She couldn't see the pots and pans well any longer as tears slowly filled her eyes. She just... sat there. Not even crying properly. Just sensing the tears flowing and... nothing. It was like all the colors drained out of her with the tears.</p>
<p>A sharp clang brought her back with a snap. Catra had flung the pan on top of the rest of them and was now watching her anxiously. Glimmer stared at it in disbelief for a few moments, and then finally she started to cry properly. Good, gulping sobs and tears and snot and everything, and whatever grayness that had possessed her was gone. Before she knew it she clung like a child to Catra and made quite a mess in her fur from the crying, but Catra was far too relieved to object.</p>
<p>Glimmer's pans never went missing after that (thinking back on it, that was quite remarkable given all they endured on that island).</p>
<p>After that they did something most unusual.</p>
<p>They talked.</p>
<p>About... them.</p>
<p>About their relationship, whatever it was.</p>
<p>About feelings, about boundaries, about rules, about hopes, about fears.</p>
<p>They both had so much to say about fear.</p>
<p>
  <i>Never leave me again.</i>
</p>
<p>They sat by the fire, holding hands, looking one another in the eye and with the urgent desperation that comes from utter mutual dependence they forced themselves to stay on course, even when the conversation hit rough patches.</p>
<p>And they swore an oath that night.</p>
<p>That Beast Island would not get them.</p>
<p>That they would not die there.</p>
<p>That they both would get through it.</p>
<p>Together.</p>
<p>Because no matter what, neither of them would have to be alone in that horrible place ever again.</p>
<p>
  <i>Never, ever leave me again.</i>
</p>
<p>And they understood better than most what they signed up for.</p>
<p>Understood how much work it would entail for the two of them to stick together.</p>
<p>How much frustration, how much hardship.</p>
<p>But decided, that it still was worth it.</p>
<p>I suppose it might look romantic, in a certain light, but I assure you it was anything but (that part comes later).</p>
<p>This was pure survival. This was two desperate souls clinging to each other for support under the gallows.</p>
<p>They would both survive Beast Island, or none of them would.</p>
<p>And they would be damned if it were to be the latter.</p>
<p>Things got better after that. Much better.</p>
<p>Funny how talking about your feelings can make that happen.</p>
<p>Glimmer was most smug about it afterwards, when they looked back at that night.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I'm so proud of them!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. The better part</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"Better" does not always imply "easier".</p><p>They still fought. They still screamed their lungs out. They still stormed off.</p><p>But they had better tools to handle it now, and they improved all the time.</p><p>At one point, Catra almost - but not quite - threw away the dinner Glimmer made that day. But she didn't. She carefully put down the bowl and <i>then</i> she stormed off. They were both proud of her after they had time to cool down.</p><p>At one point, Glimmer bit herself in the tongue so hard her mouth filled with blood rather than hurling Adora's name at Catra in a hurtful manner. They talked about that too afterwards. They had <i>rules</i> about self harm.</p><p>Beast Island would not get to them.</p><p>Neither of them had the best experiences of rules as a concept. For Glimmer, daughter of the sovereign monarch and high commander in the princess alliance, rules had always been a question of negotiation."Please mom, can I have a cookie, can I stay up late, can I <i>please</i> go on another dangerous mission? Pretty please?"</p><p>Catra had a similar experience. For her, the rules simply were whatever Shadow Weaver wanted them to be, and if Catra had broken them were simply a question of if Shadow Weaver wanted to punish her (which she usually did).</p><p>Here, with no higher authority than themselves, things were differently. No one could force them to follow a rule if they didn't want to, but the flip side of the coin was that if they didn't follow the rule, the rule wasn't followed. As simple as that.</p><p>On a good day they could talk and negotiate and even, in a few exceptional instances, compromise. On a bad day they had the rules. They were their last check against things being... less good again.</p><p>They both knew how vital it was to keep things from being less good.</p><p>So they stuck to their rules. They talked. They tested what worked and what didn't.</p><p>When they slipped up - and they often did - they talked about that too. They made <i>rules</i> about that too. Rules about it being all right to fail, as long as you tried to <i>make</i> it right afterwords.</p><p>For Catra, the word "sorry" stung like bees, but she still forced herself to say it. Again and again. And each time she did, it stung less.</p><p>For Glimmer, all the little indignities life on Beast Island in general and life with Catra in particular grated against her nerves like claws. But she still forced herself to calm down. Count to ten, or twenty or a hundred or whatever it took, and every time she got just a little bit better at channeling her temper in constructive ways.</p><p>Spite served them well, sometimes. If nothing else worked, they resorted to picture the island groaning in frustration every time they refused to play their part in its little mind games. </p><p><i>Oh, you want me to lash out to defend myself against criticism? Wouldn't it be a </i>shame<i> if I were to open up and admit faults instead?</i></p><p>It really took the edge of an argument when one of them delivered an apology through clenched teeth only to immediately after turn inland with a rude gesture and a shouted 'take that, piece of rocks-and-shit'.</p><p>They soon learnt to be careful with quick movements when they were fighting. Shouting was one thing, but a hand moving too quickly brought back memories of claws or sparks.</p><p>They learnt how important it was not to make the other feel cornered, or threatened. They both responded really badly to feeling helpless.</p><p>They did what they could for the other not to feel that way again.</p><p>They updated their toolbox, and bit by bit they improved both their relationship and themselves, even if it didn't feel like it at the time.</p><p>One night, when Glimmer's mood turned to tears rather than rage, she apologized, again, for stranding them and Catra told her to shut up because she was sick of having to deal with that, and was Glimmer truly stupid enough not to think Catra regretted the horrible thing <i>she</i> had done to <i>her</i>?</p><p>"Um.... you really have to be more specific," Glimmer had said, and Catra gave her a withering look.</p><p>"Shadow Weaver," she snarled." I gave you to that monster. She tortured you. I knew she would. I didn't care... I..." Glimmer tried a smile.</p><p>"I've had a lot of things happening to me. It's all right. That was hardly the worst."</p><p>The edge came off Catra's voice... "...I thought I would never put anyone else in her power... whoever it was... but I did. I..."</p><p>It was a great shock for Glimmer to realize that Catra was crying. Moving very, very slowly she reached out her arms, and when Catra didn't pull away, she hugged her.</p><p>They sat like that for a long time.</p><p>They found an entirely new set of tools they had to explore, about how to deal with guilt. They were quite amazed, how many, nuanced ways there were to approach some topics in a constructive manner - or a not so constructive manner for that matter. Surprisingly - or not - neither the Horde nor the first princess alliance had been very good at teaching them how to dealt with guilt and regret. They had to figure it out by themselves. So they did. Hit and miss.</p><p>There were some spectacular misses, but also some pretty impressive hits.</p><p>Glimmer cried over leaving Entrapta behind, and Catra held her.</p><p>Catra talked with low, monotone voice about burnt villages and destroyed homes. Glimmer said in silence next to her, a warm hand on her arm.</p><p>"I wanted to kill you," Glimmer whispered. "I came so close. What if I had..."</p><p>Catra hugged her.</p><p>They talked about anger. Of all the things that had made them lash out. Glimmer talked about insecurities about her powers, her lack of friends, her fragile position in the princess alliance. Catra listened.</p><p>Catra talked about Shadow Weaver. Glimmer stared at her in horror.</p><p>They also found little ways to reach out to each other.</p><p>Glimmer laughed until she nearly peed herself when Catra told her - in vivid detail - about how she got Shadow Weaver thrown in a Horde cell.</p><p>Catra cheered her on as Glimmer told her some highlights of her life-long mission to disobey her mother.</p><p>They - tentatively - brought up Adora and found they could actually laugh at some of their shared experiences.</p><p>"Can you believe her expression when she saw me in the tank?"</p><p>"For the longest time, she had no idea how to transform. 'For the honor of grayskull, blah, blah, blah'"</p><p>They looked each other in the eyes. They saw the pain - there was always pain when Adora was mentioned - but they also saw the common ground. Saw the other not as a threat, but as support, even in this.</p><p>That night they hugged each other as they fell asleep. Why bother to make two separate sleeping nooks when one would be so much more... cozy?</p><p>- - -</p><p>Some days later they had wandered uphill and come upon a stream. Glimmer strolled along the banks, looking for promising junk to salvage parts from when she suddenly realized she was in the presence of a predator. She froze.</p><p>She could not immediately tell how she knew, if it was a change in the background noise of birds and insects, or a tell in how the light fell, or a smell; but if Beast Island taught you nothing else, it taught you to trust your instincts. She slowly moved backwards until she felt the trunk of a tree against her back. She cautiously looked around. That's when she saw Catra.</p><p>Catra was crouching on a branch hanging over the stream, still like a statue. Her eyes were focused on the water. Glimmer couldn't help but admire her. Catra had always been strong, but life on Beast Island had hardened her, especially combined with - Glimmer felt a pang of pride - regular meals. Every single muscle in her body was tensed like a coiled spring, ready to unload at any moment. There was something in seeing all that lethal potential in perfect stillness, sunlight playing over her fur, claws digging into the branch in complete silence, knowing that at any time she could...</p><p>Glimmer yelped when Catra without any warning whatsoever leaped from the branch and dropped down in the water. A moment later she emerged, water spraying behind her like rainbow. She landed right in front of the still stunned Glimmer and with a proud grin held up a razor finned fish impaled on her claws.</p><p>"Tonight we feast, Sparkles," she purred and tossed the fish to Glimmer who had to scramble to keep a hold on it. With one mighty leap she was in the tree again. Glimmer watched her disappeared among the canopies, her heart beating furiously.</p><p>That night they did indeed feast. Glimmer roasted the fish over open fire and Catra looked as proud as a house cat who brought home a mouse. She babbled - no she really did - about ideas she had to perfect her fishing technique, about ways to trap birds, about ways to build little stashes of leftover food (in her mind they would have enough food for leftovers) where the beasts couldn't get them. Glimmer just sat there, content as a lovely warmth spread through her from the fish and the fire and from Catra's laughter. She was...</p><p>Huh, it took her by surprise, but she couldn't deny it. She was happy.</p><p>It was like a knot inside her untied, just then. A muscle she hadn't realized was tensed that could finally relax. Glimmer leaned back against the tree trunk and she looked up at Catra and... dunno, just smiled, she supposed. She never noticed when she drifted off to sleep, but eventually the warmth from the fire and the taste of the fish, the feeling of her full belly and the sound of Catra's voice all blurred together and Glimmer was in that precious state between awake and asleep with no idea if she was coming or going. She felt memories and thoughts and dreams and external impressions all mingle together and she was content just experiencing them without trying to sort out what was what.</p><p>Catra was there, in her dreams... or thoughts... or in her reality, she supposed. Strong, confident, smirking that smug little smirk of hers. Glimmer felt she could lose herself in those large, alert, hetero-chromatic eyes. Catra bent down over her and as gently as she could picked her up. </p><p>Glimmer snuggled close. She <i>liked</i> this dream. </p><p>But then her stomach lurched as Catra jumped - <i>really</i> jumped - up into the nest she had built them in the tree for the night, carrying Glimmer like she weighed nothing more than a child.</p><p>So.... maybe this wasn't a dream after all?</p><p>Catra gently put her down and then, awkwardly, stroke her once over the chin.</p><p>"Goodnight, Sparkles," she whispered. "Nothing bad will happen to you tonight. I promise."</p><p>Huh?</p><p>Glimmer suddenly had a lot of follow-up questions.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Things are going well :-)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. The confusing part</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Warning: There are some risk for crushing damage, and yucky descriptions of the inside of insects in this one. <i>Some</i> characters are also sickeningly sweet, but that's less of a warning and more of a teaser.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Catra's ears perked up. </p><p>"Monster," she whispered. She motioned to a fallen tree trunk, and she and Glimmer quickly slid behind it. Just a moment after, Glimmer heard the scraping of chitin against sharp rocks, and something huge and vaguely beetle-like came crawling. She ducked her head down and did her best to keep still. Some of the monsters were really good at tracking vibrations in the ground, and by the way it moved, she bet this was one of them.</p><p>Catra hid just next to her, muscles tense and ready to spring into action. Glimmer edged closer to her. Catra shot her a glance but said nothing.</p><p>The beetle slowly ambled forward, moving in an erratic pattern with no obvious direction. It took it's sweet time. Glimmer was quickly getting bored.</p><p>She smiled a mischievous smile and nuzzled even closer to Catra. Catra tried to move away, but she was already close to the edge of the trunk and couldn't get further without risking being seen. Glimmer took full advantage of the fact and practically wrapped herself around the increasingly frustrated Catra.</p><p>"Knock it off, Sparkles," Catra hissed.</p><p>"Whaaaat, I'm scared!" Glimmer whispered with a sweet smile. She looked at Catra with wide eyes. "You'll protect me, won't you Catra?" </p><p>Catra blushed and turned away. Glimmer smirked and pressed her face against Catra's shoulder. Her fur was warm and smelled like soil and sweat and that special smell that was Catra's own.</p><p>"Knock it off, I said," Catra growled. </p><p>"What will you do to me if I don't?" Glimmer said with her mouth still full of Catra's fur. Catra moved her head slightly, catching Glimmer's eyes. She held up her hand.</p><p>Glimmer expected claws to slide out, but they didn't. Instead, Catra smirked and wiggled her fingers slightly. Glimmer gasped.</p><p>"You wouldn't!"</p><p>"Wouldn't I, Sparkles?"</p><p>Without breaking eye-contact, Catra slowly moved her hand towards Glimmer's exposed side. With Glimmer desperately trying to keep herself from giggling, Catra extended a finger and poked at a torn section of her dress, stopping just before she touched skin. Glimmer pressed her mouth shut and quickly shook her head. Catra raised an eyebrow. She sloooooowly moved the finger along Glimmer's side, only occasionally actually touching it, but giving Glimmer's already overheated imagination everything to work with.</p><p>Glimmer desperately tried to move her side away from Catra's finger without actually <i>moving</i> away from her, with the predictable result that Catra's teasing fingers remained firmly in perfect tickling position.</p><p>"Last warning, princess," Catra purred, and when Glimmer didn't move she pressed her fingers towards her with a slow, wiggling motion. Glimmer spasmed and tried to roll to the side to keep the fingers away from her, but since she wasn't willing to actually move away from Catra, keeping her arms and legs firmly wrapped around her, all she achieved was exposing her stomach instead. Catra immediately moved her fingers there and Glimmer couldn't stop herself from letting a little gasp letting out.</p><p>"You want me to stop, just say the word," Catra whispered, voice full of honey. She temporarily froze her fingers, letting them hoover over Glimmer's stomach.</p><p>"You wish, Horde scum," Glimmer whispered back and than clamped her mouth shut as Catra's finger found their target again. </p><p>Catra tickled the frantically spasming Glimmer for a few heartbeats, and then she stopped.</p><p>"Wrong answer," she drawled.</p><p>"I won't give you the satisfaction," Glimmer shot back. Catra's eyes sparkled.</p><p>"Oooooh, won't you? Then I suppose I'll have to... persuade you." her fingers moved towards Glimmers neck. Glimmer pressed her shoulders upwards, trying to deny the prying fingers access, but Catra was fully content just teasing, moving her hand to this unprotected spot, than the next, never actually touching her, but just the anticipation made Glimmer giggle almost as much as if Catra had actually tickled her. </p><p>She wriggled back and forth on the ground, at last giving up, letting go of Catra and rolling away from her. She curled up in a little ball by the other end of the log, shaking with suppressed laughter. Catra watched her with a triumphant smirk and waited until the laughter subsided.</p><p>"Don't try to punch outside your weight class, Sparkles," she drawled. Glimmer smirked back.</p><p>"Just you wait, Kitten. Next time I'm not going easy on you."</p><p>"You just keep telling yourself that."</p><p>"Hah! I'll..." she hesitated, and they both turned their heads at the same time, looking up at the beetle that loomed over them.</p><p>"Oh..." Glimmer said. "Maybe we should have..."</p><p>The rest of the sentence got lost in the general scuffle as the beetle crashed down towards them. Glimmer and Catra ran in opposite directions, causing the monster to hesitate for a few, crucial moments which of them to follow. Glimmer took the opportunity to scramble up a tree as Catra ran down a small slope, luring the beast after her.</p><p>Glimmer found a good spot on a trunk and carefully checked that there were no other monsters hiding up here (she would not make <i>that</i> mistake again, thank you very much). Then she anxiously looked for Catra. She could hear the beetle crash around, but it didn't seem to be in that sort of immediate distress she had come to associate with a lone monster trying to get one over force captain Catra.</p><p>After a few moments, Catra came up the slope again, moving in an almost leisurous pace. She winked at Glimmer and moved over to the trunk of the tree where she was hiding.</p><p>"Come up!" Glimmer cried. Catra considered it.</p><p>"Nah," she drawled. "I like it down here much better."</p><p>"Then stop toying with that thing and get rid of it," Glimmer shouted, anxiety rising as the beetle came up the slope and sped up towards Catra.</p><p>"Sorry, can't do." Catra said calmly. She looked Glimmer in the eyes and smirked.</p><p>"Whaaaat, I'm scared, Sparkles. You better save me."</p><p>"<i>What?</i>"</p><p>"And better make it quick," Catra added. Then she dramatically placed a hand over her forehead. "Swoooooon," she said and sank to the ground as the beetle descended upon her.</p><p>Glimmer started swearing, a long, complicated string of profanities, and as she did she dropped down on the shield of the beetle which was now almost in within biting range of Catra who was lying on the ground like a useless piece of debris and - if she survived this Glimmer would definitely kill her - was shaking with laughter.</p><p>With a frantic jerk Glimmer managed to grab hold of the beetle's antennas, and tugged at them with all her might. The effect was instantaneous. The beast completely forgot about Catra and started to jerk its head back and forth in an effect to shake Glimmer loose. She held on for all she was worth and then - oh she would <i>double</i> kill Catra for this - managed to get her knife and rammed it as hard as she could into the soft seam between two plates and into its - yuck - brain.</p><p>Glimmer twisted the knife, managed to get her hand back again before the twisting movements of the beetle brought the plates together and cut her arm off. She then took a deep breath, trying not to look too closely at the disgusting goo that covered her hand, and did it again in another soft spot. </p><p>It took three different stabs in different parts of the brain, and two chopped off antenna, but then the beast finally got the message and sank down, dead. Glimmer jumped off it, covered in goo and twitchy with adrenaline and ran up to Catra who was sitting by the tree, watching her with interest.</p><p>"You saved me! My hero!" Catra said with faux-thankful voice and did an outrageous impression of what she thought a damsel in distress might look like, eyes wide, mouth half open, shoulders raised, hands clutching each other in front of her chest. Glimmer had to check herself carefully not to scream at her.</p><p>"You really held back from getting rid of the monster just to make that corny joke?" she asked with incredulous voice. Catra shrugged.</p><p>"Why not? I knew you could take care of it." Glimmer stared at her, rage suddenly draining out of her.</p><p>"You... did?"</p><p>Catra gave her a warm smile.</p><p>"Of course I did. How long have we been together now? How many scrapes haven't I seen you get out of? A beetle is nothing for the mighty princess Glimmer of Brightmoon."</p><p>Glimmer felt her eyes becoming very warm, and very wet. She took a small step forward, suddenly standing very close to Catra.</p><p>"Kitten..." she whispered, one hand gently grasping Catra's fingers. "You don't know how much it means to me to hear those words from you." Catra gave her a soft smile.</p><p>"It's true, Sparkles."</p><p>"There's just one thing you forgot," Glimmer went on in the same fragile tone of voice. Catra tensed slightly.</p><p>"What?"</p><p>"You shouldn't have lowered your guard," Glimmer whispered, and before Catra had the chance to parse her words, Glimmer rammed her fingers into her sides.</p><p>Catra shrieked and desperately tried to shield herself from the onslaught. Glimmer laughed a mocking laugh as she ran away. After a brief moment of hesitation Catra ran after her, fully intent on turning the tides of the tickle war. </p><p>Things went <i>much</i> better after that.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Oh, get a room you two.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. The much better part</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This is the spicy part. Not graphical, but spicy nevertheless.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It began with Adora (what didn't). They shared memories - painful as some of them were - compared notes - "sleep fighting? What was that about?" - talked about hopes... dreams... whatsifs... neverweres... talked about <i>things</i> they might have wanted to do with Adora... <i>Things</i> they might have wanted to try in general... <i>Things</i> that they might still not entirely have written off.</p><p>They slept close at night, like they always did nowadays. Good way to preserve body heat, good way to keep the vines away, and... <i>things</i> happened.</p><p>Things that did not make sleep an option any longer.</p><p>Things that made them sit up and gasp and look at each other in confusion, and embarrassment and <i>hunger</i>.</p><p>And they both went through their list of rules and communication tools and principles for how to deal with all the strange emotions and situations their relationship could throw at them, and came up short. Neither of them had anticipated <i>this</i> scenario.</p><p>And they both looked back on their previous lives, their experiences, their nascent ideas on how to go about... things. And again they came up short. This had <i>not</i> been part of their - admittedly incomplete - ideas for how they had expected this kind of thing to turn out.</p><p>So perhaps the prudent thing would be to take things slow. Figure things out. Not rush into... things before they were ready.</p><p>They rushed in. A quick, gasping exchange confirming that <i>this</i> was a situation they were fully prepared to play by ear and could the other one now <i>please</i> shut that pretty mouth and put it to better use this instance.</p><p>(At that point a monster decided this was a good time to attack. Never before has a monster been slain that quickly on Beast Island.)</p><p>They tested, they fumbled, they... um... let's just say that some things they had to figure out by trial and error.</p><p>They were more than willing to put in the work.</p><p>They laid naked in the moonlight, gasping for air and looking at each other, marinated in a cocktail of emotions neither knew what to do with, but fully intent on finding even more interesting things to add to the mix, come first opportunity.</p><p>After that things became... complicated.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>That poor monster, though :o</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0013"><h2>13. The complicated part</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Chapter 13 - The complicated part</p><p>They found entirely new ways to hurt each other, as they opened new aspects of their relationship. Entirely new insecurities, new chinks in their armors. New topics of issues to explore. New sets of boundaries. New rules.</p><p>How would you even begin to communicate some of the... things they felt? Some of the things they did, wanted to do, wanted to be done to them?</p><p>"No, a bit lower. A bit... um... harder?"</p><p>But they also found new ways to share excitement, intimacy, support... love?</p><p>Love.</p><p>It was Glimmer who stumbled upon that word first, and she dismissed it immediately. I mean - come on!</p><p>But once the thought had taken hold, she couldn't shake it off (love can be like that).</p><p>She tentatively took it up with Catra who was first confused, then dismissive, then angry, then....</p><p>"Yeah, you're probably right, Sparkles. Love you too. Who could have guessed."</p><p>"Yeah.... so... how... what do we..."</p><p>"That 'talking' thing you're so fond of has served us right so far."</p><p>It did indeed continue to serve them well, as their relationship developed and they found even more complicated feelings almost bursting their heart.</p><p>Sex, after all, was pretty straightforward once they got the hang of it.</p><p>Fear of loosing each other was old hat by now.</p><p>But how would they even begin to deal with stomachs full of butterfly (metaphorical for once, not the kind they used for stew), with wanting to giggle like maniacs, with wanting nothing more than staring the other in the eyes all day long?</p><p>Glimmer, at least, had the proper upbringing for this sort of things and could put names on many of the emotions that Catra put under the umbrella of "behaving like idiots". Crushing, flirting, dating, infatuation, being horny (Catra knew that one!), passion, Tête-à-tête... (Glimmer wasn't entirely sure about that last one but was willing to try it out.) But that still left them to figure out what that had to do with <i>them</i>.</p><p>Glimmer loved Catra.</p><p>Catra loved Glimmer.</p><p>That really didn't sound right.</p><p>But then there was the sexing and the crushing and (possibly) the tetateting and the behaving like idiots which was awfully hard to overlook.</p><p>"Found a purple bug! Do you want it?"</p><p>"I think I prefer the taste of pink."</p><p>"<i>Catra!</i>"</p><p>So where did that leave them?</p><p>Did the daughter of the commander of the princess alliance really love a Horde soldier? No, scratch that. <i>The</i> Horde soldier. Force captain Catra herself?</p><p>Did said force captain really love goody two-shoe pink princess Sparkles?</p><p>Or maybe those things did not matter on Beast Island?</p><p>Perhaps Glimmer just loved the Catra who had made her pans, who kept her safe, who was there for her when literally no one else was. And perhaps Catra loved her for the same reason. The Glimmer who made her food, who tended her wounds, who was there for her when literally no one else was.</p><p>That tracked. That worked. There was some comfort in that. <i>What happens on Beast Island stays on Beast Island.</i></p><p>Only...</p><p>That cocky way Catra smiled. That way she managed to work a challenge into the simplest statements. That way her tail moved when she felt she had done something extra clever. That way her fur felt under her fingertips. The taste of her kisses... Wouldn't they be the same off the island too?</p><p>Or that way Glimmer looked at her, eyes full of life and light, or that self assured humming she did when she was busy with something, or the mischievous smile she got when she felt she had done something extra clever or the way she smelled when she had been in the sun and came to snuggle really close. The taste of her kisses...</p><p>In fact, did they really want their relationship to end if they ever got off the island?</p><p>If so, was getting off the island really, truly worth it?</p><p>Glimmer spent a full week once, every stolen moment of free time, to put together a necklace of seashells. Shimmering in yellow and blue, matching Catra's eyes. She shyly gave it to Catra one early morning when they had just woken up.</p><p>At first Catra had no idea what to do with it. She tried flippant, she tried dismissive, she even tried a polite 'thank you'. She put it on and made a joke of looking like a princess.</p><p>But as the day went on and she couldn't stop catching glimpses of herself in reflections from puddles and old parts of the trash that was littered everywhere, and she couldn't stop her fingers from exploring the texture of every last of the shells, she couldn't overlook the astonishing fact that Glimmer had made her a necklace because she thought it was pretty and because that Catra should have something that was pretty and that the beautiful thing Glimmer had made, she had made not only <i>to</i> Catra but <i>for</i> Catra and that Glimmer had made this beautiful thing <i>because</i> of Catra and that no one had ever done such a thing for Catra before, except...</p><p>And she cried, and she raged, and she threw the necklace into the woods and she screamed the most hurtful things she could think of and stormed off, leaving a crying and devastated Glimmer behind and she ran back and she tore with her claws at the undergrowth until she found the necklace again and she crept back to Glimmer and cried, cried, cried like her heart would break and what was <i>wrong</i> with Glimmer? Because Catra did not <i>deserve</i> beautiful things.</p><p>...or did she?</p><p>And they breathed, and they sat up straight and they made each other a mug of tea from the least foul herb they had found on the island and they did all those little preparations they had found made their Serious Talks more constructive, or at least less likely to end in them shouting at each other (Perfuma would have been proud of them) and they talked.</p><p>Talked about Adora.</p><p>Talked about Scorpia.</p><p>Talked about Bow.</p><p>Talked about people left behind.</p><p>People taken for granted.</p><p>Chances lost.</p><p>Lives that for every day felt less like something they hoped to one day step into again, and more like memories of dreams they would never visit again.</p><p>They did not have Adora on Beast Island.</p><p>Or Scorpia.</p><p>Or Bow.</p><p>Or anyone.</p><p>But they did have each other.</p><p>Glimmer put the necklace around Catra's neck again. Catra cried again, tears of relief this time.</p><p>Maybe, just maybe, Catra did deserve beautiful things.</p><p>They walked together, hand in hand, along the beach. They ran laughing together from monsters that were way too slow to get them. They climbed to the top of the trees and sat on a branch together, watching the alien beauty of their island at night time, lit by a thousand blinking lights, by a thousand watching eyes. They made love in the light of the moons, and for both of them, the other was the most precious ting ever.</p><p>They did not have much, but they did have each other.</p><p>Life was hard on Beast Island, a constant struggle for survival against monsters, elements, starvation and the ever present, droning signal. But finally they started to realize for real that they were not stuck there alone. That there was another pair of hands, a warm embrace, a soothing voice, another pair of loving, watchful eyes for them.</p><p>And the more they came to trust and depend on each other, the worse became the fear of loosing the other. They cried, huddled together and holding the other hard, after the latest close call, the latest snapping monster jaw or surging piece of technology or misstep in quicksand. They promised each other to be careful, to be safe, to never, ever, <i>ever</i> leave the other alone.</p><p>But how could you truly keep such a promise?</p><p>I said the romantic part would come later, and I suppose this is it. Two young people trying to figure out love and everything associated with it while stuck for what felt like an eternity on an island where everything tried their very best to kill them.</p><p>It was messy and scary and intoxicating and on occasion wonderful. It felt too good to last, so naturally it didn't.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Ah, young love. So confusing. So scary.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0014"><h2>14. Save the cat</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Warning: Vicious fighting, themes of drowning and acrophobia.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was a day just as any other day - it was a long time since they lost count of days, weeks, months or years - Glimmer was tinkering with their heat source when Catra crashed into the camp. She moved like a panther on all fours and a cruel cut along her back had painted her fur with blood. Glimmer stumbled to her feet.</p>
<p>"Wha..?"</p>
<p>"We leave now, Sparkles. They're coming." Catra quickly snatched up Glimmer's pots and threw them on her back in an improvised sack, then she grabbed Glimmer by the arm and ran out of the clearing. Moments after, Glimmer heard something big crashing through the forest.</p>
<p>She forced herself to run as fast as she could, trying to keep pace with Catra. She led them down a creek and over to the other side where the ruins of ancient buildings gave them plenty of hiding places. They crawled in under a large slab of stone, grabbing a stick each to clear the way for spiders, and listened as the crashing noises came closer.</p>
<p>"What is it?" Glimmer asked.</p>
<p>"Pookas, a whole litter of them. And some of those millipede-things following them. They were sniffing around our last camp-site. I tried to lead them away, but they outsmarted me."</p>
<p>"Where do we go?"</p>
<p>"Further downstream. If we get to the quicksand pits they will have a harder time following us. Then we can loose them in the glass forest" Glimmer swallowed. She knew how dangerous those places were. That said something about how high Catra rated the danger they fled from.</p>
<p>"Leave the pots, they'll slow you down."</p>
<p>Catra gave Glimmer a death glare and adjusted the makeshift rucksack.</p>
<p>"Right, Sparkles. Sneak until they discover you and then run as fast as you can."</p>
<p>"Wait, where are you..."</p>
<p>"See you in the glass forest. Now get your cute ass moving." Catra crawled out, and after a moment of hesitation Glimmer followed her.</p>
<p>She sneaked as quietly as she dared through the undergrowth and to the brook. She crouched down and waded in the shallow water close to the brook. She knew it was only a matter of time before the razor-fins would start to take chunk out of her feet, but they had learnt the hard way that with pookas on your trail you better hide your scent as well as you could.</p>
<p>She followed the stream for maybe ten tense minutes and was just starting to think she might be in the clear when she saw a light lit up in the forest on the other side of the stream. She froze.</p>
<p>The lone pooka slowly emerged from the gloom. It sniffed the air and its large, glowing eye scanned the surroundings. Glimmer hardly dared breathing. She could probably take a single pooka in a fight - at least if she managed to get her hands on a suitable weapon - but there would never be just one...</p>
<p>It took a few steps forward, closer to the water. Glimmer dared crouching down to make herself less visible. Something touched her left ankle and she did her very best to fool herself into thinking it was just a piece of debris or something.</p>
<p>Then she felt the first nibble. And the second one. The razor fins had found her.</p>
<p>Forcing herself not to scream, not to make sudden movements, Glimmer slowly moved out of the water, which by now was red with her blood. The pooka didn't seem to have noticed her. Maybe...</p>
<p>It snapped it's head right towards her, opened it's jaws and screamed.</p>
<p>Glimmer bolted. No need for stealth any longer. It followed her, but she knew she was not in danger just yet. A lone pooka would not risk attacking until the rest of the pack showed up. Probably. She found an even running pace - life on Beast Island had done wonder for her physical fitness - and quickly made it to the swampier area they had named the Quicksand Pits.</p>
<p>Without loosing a beat, Glimmer rushed into the first pit, quickly jumping between safe spots and emerging on the other side. Quicksand was still one of the things on Beast Island she was most queasy about, her panic when she fell in that pit together with Catra what felt like a lifetime ago was not forgotten, but Catra had spent a lot of time training her to see the difference between safe and not so safe spots, and techniques for how to get up even if she missed a step.</p>
<p><i>"You've got this, Sparkles,"</i> she had said with that cocksure smile of hers, and the compliment still burnt in Glimmer's chest.</p>
<p>
  <i>I've got this</i>
</p>
<p>She jumped across a few more pits, ran past a few others and than bolted in behind a half dead tree. It wasn't until then she allowed herself to peek out and look for the pooka.</p>
<p>It had followed her, right now carefully walking across the second pit. Glimmer smiled in grim satisfaction. It hadn't waited for the rest of the pack. That meant she had time to deal with it.</p>
<p>The pooka carefully followed the trail through the quicksand, until suddenly it felt a much stronger whiff of the scent. Just in front of it it, in the middle of the pit, was a torn piece of cloth, the scent of the prey fresh on it. It hesitated. The ground was unstable here, but it felt the prey was close. It took a careful step closer to the cloth, and another one. It could almost touch the cloth with the nose...</p>
<p>Glimmer crashed down on the pooka and with all her might pressed it down into the quicksand. Climbing was a poor substitute for teleportation, but with some planning it was nearly as effective for surprise attacks. Ignoring jaws and claws she used all her weight and strength to keep its head under the muck, to deny the pooka the opportunity to call the rest of the pack. Ignoring the growing panic as she felt them both getting sucked under she waited until she was sure it wouldn't get its head above the surface - she would visit this moment again in her nightmares, she could tell - and then she grabbed the vine she had tied around her waist and dragged herself up from the sucking pit.</p>
<p>For a terrible moment she thought the vine might break, but then she managed to get back to stable ground. She sunk down, panting hard, and let the after-rush of adrenaline flow through her. But only for a few moments. Then she stood up, grabbed a stick and continued sneaking towards the glass forest.</p>
<p>The most dangerous pooka was never the one in front of you.</p>
<p>She made it through the rest of the quicksand pits without spotting any more monsters. She knew the rest of the pack was close so she did her best to hide her trail. She had not heard anything from Catra. She could only hope she was all right.</p>
<p>The glass forest was creepy, even by Beast Island standards. A whole section of the island without vegetation, without life and with the rocks converted to a sharp, crystalline material. Glimmer could only guess what kind of ancient accident or not-accident had caused it. Tech laid bare here, and power surges were more common without animals and monsters routinely tripping the old wires. They avoided it as much as possible, but since it was just as inhospitable for the monsters as for themselves, it was a good place to loose pursuers.</p>
<p>She carefully sneaked forward. Chrystal rocks formed a labyrinth, and she and Catra had spent some lazy afternoons memorizing meeting spots for this very reason. She reached it without incident and crouched down in the hiding place. Now all she had to do was wait and hope the rest of the pack hadn't got wind of her trail.</p>
<p>It had been maybe fifteen minutes - enough for Glimmer to be seriously worked up about Catra - when she heard the sound of pincers against crystals. She crouched down and kept her eyes close to the crack between rocks that served as a spy hole. In the crag below her one of the hated millipedes dragged itself forward. Three pookas walked with it, eyes scanning their surroundings.</p>
<p>Glimmer had never seen the pookas collaborate with other monsters before, but seeing them searching together made her question earlier close scrapes and wonder if she had the pookas to thank for those as well.</p>
<p>They didn't follow the path she had walked, so she didn't think they followed her. Thus, for them to venture this far into the glass forest most likely meant Catra was here as well.</p>
<p>And that they hadn't found her yet, Glimmer noted with relief.</p>
<p>She heard a sound behind her and spun round, but breathed out when she saw it was Catra carefully entering the hideout.</p>
<p>"Hi, Sparkles," she whispered. "Fancy meeting a girl like you in a place like this." Her tone was glib but her voice was strained. Glimmer's eye immediately darted to her arms. There were fresh cuts there.</p>
<p>"Yeah, well, you should have seen the other gal," Catra went on in the same tone. "I got in a few good hits on the pack leader, so with any luck they will squabble among themselves long enough to forget about us."</p>
<p>"I got one," Glimmer whispered and was rewarded with a proud look from Catra. "But there're three more down there. And a millipede."</p>
<p>"Right. I tried to hide my tracks, but you never know with pookas."</p>
<p>"What's the plan?"</p>
<p>Catra let her claws slide out.</p>
<p>"I'm the plan," she smirked. Glimmer had to force herself to silence a giggle.</p>
<p>"Well, since we're waiting anyway..." she crept closer and nuzzled Catra on the neck. Catra squirmed in a pleasant little motion, and Glimmer felt emboldened to repeat the action. Catra tried to push her away with a decidedly un-Catra-like giggle. Glimmer gave her a smug smile.</p>
<p>"You want me to stop, Kitten, you just say the word!"</p>
<p>"Time and place, Sparkles. Time and place."</p>
<p>"To me it seems like we have plenty of time right here..." Catra rolled her eyes.</p>
<p>"If the pampered little princess finds waiting so hard, perhaps I should..." her ears sharply perked up and she closed her mouth. Glimmer tensed.</p>
<p>The soft patter of the pookas' paws was heard outside their hideout.</p>
<p>Catra gave Glimmer a grim look and held up three fingers. Glimmer swallowed and nodded. Catra lowered one finger. Glimmer crouched and made herself ready.</p>
<p>Catra exploded out of the hideout, a furious ball of teeth and claws. She caught the pooka by surprise, and before it even had time to get a cry out she had ripped its throat out. She continued to the next one. Glimmer ran out after her, grabbed her stick and scrambled to the top of the hill. She saw the third pooka trying to circle Catra, so she jumped it and got a good blow in before it turned on her. She followed up and made sure not to give the monster an opening to slink away. In the meanwhile, Catra did short work of her opponent.</p>
<p>That's when the millipede crashed towards them. Glimmer let the pooka go and scrambled backwards, towards the ravine. Catra jumped - straight up - and landed on the monster's back. she quickly scrambled towards its eyes. But before she got there, the millipede was upon Glimmer.</p>
<p>She tried a feint, but there simply was not enough space. She had to press back towards the ravine. The ground was unstable here and she felt like the entire ravine wall threatened to come down if she walked too close to the edge.</p>
<p>"Jump!" Catra cried and Glimmer did, only narrowly avoiding a bite.</p>
<p>She really hoped Catra had a plan for the next part.</p>
<p>Catra caught her mid air. Somehow she had managed to get hold of an antenna from the millipede. It broke their fall enough before it was ripped off that when they landed on the bottom of the ravine, they got severely bruised and cut from the fall and the sharp crystal rocks that fell from the ravine wall, but they were able to get up again.</p>
<p>The millipede slithered along the edge of the ravine, partially blinded and not quite dumb enough to follow them straight down. Glimmer and Catra got to their feet and anxiously looked around.</p>
<p>"We might be in the..." Glimmer begun, but then she saw the yellow light of a pooka eye light up. And another one. And another one. One pooka that was larger than the others, with fresh wounds over the face, opened the maws to growl at them. Catra took a step between it and Glimmer.</p>
<p>"You really pissed them off, didn't you, Kitten?"</p>
<p>"I've got a talent for that."</p>
<p>"So...?"</p>
<p>"So I hold them off, and you find a way out."</p>
<p>"Saved the easy job for yourself, huh?"</p>
<p>"Yeah." Catra eyed the slowly approaching pookas with narrowed eyes. "Easy. Don't take too long, Sparkles."</p>
<p>- - -</p>
<p>The pookas were fast, but Catra was faster. The pookas were strong, but Catra was stronger. The pookas were smart, but right now that worked to Catra's advantage as they all were too smart to fancy being the next one to taste Catra's claws.</p>
<p>She made sure to give them plenty of reasons to stay in that mindset.</p>
<p>But there were just so many of them, and the ravine did only so much to prevent them from flanking her.</p>
<p>"Anytime soon would be great," Catra panted as she killed yet another pooka, scrambled to the side to dodge yet another side-attack from the pack leader. Glimmer scrambled along the ravine floor, digging through the old tech that laid scattered there.</p>
<p>"Um... we could probably get up again, but they will be just as fast after us. Or we could run along the ravine, but it ends in a dead drop, or we could..."</p>
<p>"SPARKLES!"</p>
<p>"Right... do you trust me, Catra?"</p>
<p>"You know I do." Glimmer took a deep breath to push down her doubts and insecurities.</p>
<p>"Then <i>run!</i>" and she started in a dead sprint towards the pookas. After a startled moment, Catra followed her.</p>
<p>Glimmer tackled one pooka to the side, but they were only too happy to let their prey through. Follow them as they fled and take little bites from behind until one of them stumbled, that was more their way. They howled in anticipation and - Glimmer's heart sank - as a signal.</p>
<p>"I sure hope you have a step B to this plan," Catra panted as she overtook Glimmer, her wry voice not quite hiding the growing sense of panic.</p>
<p>As for answer, a detonation was heard from behind them when the power cell Glimmer had rigged up reached critical levels. They felt the blast wave go past them, but it didn't do anything to slow the pookas down.</p>
<p>"Nice work, Sparkles, but..." a rumble was heard behind them.</p>
<p>"Get us up the ravine wall, NOW!" Glimmer cried as boulders started to bounce from behind them and the rock slide Glimmer had caused were upon them and their pursuers.  </p>
<p>With a frightened yelp Catra grabbed Glimmer by the waist and threw her up towards the ravine wall. Glimmer managed to grab hold of a rock and with her heart in her throat she saw a boulder large as a wagon wheel narrowly miss Catra as she jumped clear and landed on what looked like the empty cliff face. Somehow Catra managed to hold on with her claws as the rock slide rumbled below them.</p>
<p>Some of the pooka's managed to jump clear or outrun the rocks. A good number of them didn't.</p>
<p>Catra and Glimmer shared a look and at the same time remembered to start breathing again.</p>
<p>"How do you like them sparks, eh?" Glimmer laughed, and then winced as her wounds made themselves felt.</p>
<p>"Not bad, Sparkles," Catra panted as she slid down towards the ravine floor again where a few rocks were still bouncing but most of them had settled. Glimmer beamed at her.</p>
<p>"Right," Catra said." I doubt the rest of the pack is up for a rematch right now, but we really need to get away before the millipedes..."</p>
<p>A snarling sound was heard from the other end of the ravine.</p>
<p>"Oh come on!" Glimmer cried. Catra took a deep breath.</p>
<p>"Got any more boom, princess?"</p>
<p>"Sure. Give me half an hour."</p>
<p>"What can you do with half a minute."</p>
<p>"Um... I could run?" Catra eyed the pile of rocks in front of them.</p>
<p>"Yeah, I think you'd better."</p>
<p>"What?"</p>
<p>"We won't get up in time, we can't get past them in here. They will be slowed by the rocks just as much as you. If you keep them interested I should be able to find another option."</p>
<p>"You're using your girlfriend as <i>bait</i>?"</p>
<p>"Best bait there is. Only... um, Glimmer?"</p>
<p>The unexpected sincerity in Catra's voice made Glimmer turn to her, full attention. Catra took her hands.</p>
<p>"Only... don't get caught? All right?" Glimmer squeezed her hands.</p>
<p>"I won't. Trust me, Kitten."</p>
<p>"Then you'd better start moving."</p>
<p>Catra darted up against the cliff face again. Glimmer started to run back the way they just came. Behind her she heard the snarls of the millipedes, together with the howls of the remaining pookas who apparently had found courage in their big monster buddies and joined the hunt again.</p>
<p>The power of friendship is no fun when its the other side who's doing it, Glimmer reflected as she scrambled over the rocks to keep distance between her and the mauling jaws.</p>
<p>- - -</p>
<p>She got halfway over the first pile of rocks until she heard the snarl of a pooka just behind her. She quickly darted to the right and risk a glance. Three of the pookas followed her. There were at least as many millipedes behind them, but they seemed to have trouble with the rocks. Right. That gave her a few moments to...</p>
<p>She spun around and managed a kick as she felt teeth closing in from her left side. The pack leader easily evaded her and fell back, which meant that...</p>
<p>Glimmer spun around and managed to avoid the first pooka coming from her right.</p>
<p>It was never the pooka in front of you that was the most dangerous.</p>
<p>Quickly she ran towards the cliff side and followed it further down the ravine. Right now the pookas seemed content to take easy shots, so denying them the opportunity to flank her might buy her a few moments. Still, they kept uncomfortably close, and the moment she reached the next pile of rocks and had to slow down she felt hot breath on her legs again. She spun around with her back against the cliff and aimed a kick.</p>
<p>Which was when she stumbled.</p>
<p>The pack leader leaped.</p>
<p>Catra crashed into it, fangs barred. They both landed on their feet and immediately leaped at each other again.   </p>
<p>"Oh no you don't, precious," Catra growled. "She's <i>mine</i>."</p>
<p>For a few exhilarating moments, Glimmer just stared. Catra was... magnificent. Leaping, feinting, biting, striking. Every movement was fluid, every strike powerful. Even the rest of the pookas had backed off. The pack leader had been challenged, and social protocol older than the first ones forbade them from interfering.</p>
<p>The pooka roared and Catra roared back, mimicking the manners of her opponent with a mocking tone that was not lost on woman or beast. She laughed, a taunting laugh, and the pack leader leapt at her. Catra was ready for the monster, and her claws drew blood. But the pack leader still stood.</p>
<p>Glimmer tore her eyes away and realized that this was her cue to get away. As quick as she could she scrambled over the rocks and ran on down the ravine.</p>
<p>The ravine abruptly ended by a vertical cliff wall. Far, far below Glimmer could see the beach. A stone she kicked over the edge fell and kept falling. Glimmer swallowed.</p>
<p>Near the precipice she finally found a suitable climbing spot and climbed upwards.</p>
<p>She had nearly reached the top of the ravine when Catra and the pack leader came into view, still locked in their fight, and with the remains of the pack circling them. Glimmer held her breath as Catra missed a step, only for the pack leader to jump back as Catra swiped. But that gave the pack leader the upper hand for the next strike and Catra was forced back - towards the edge.</p>
<p>Cara and her opponent fought the way experienced fighters do. Both held back, testing and feinting, not giving the other an opening. It looked almost playful, but Glimmer knew that the moment either of them slipped up, the fight would be very brutal and very short. Catra grinned like a maniac, obviously having the time of her life. Glimmer groaned.</p>
<p>"Stop playing and get away from there!"</p>
<p>"I'm only making it look easy, Sparkles," Catra panted for an answer, managing to get a hit in on the pack leader. They were still dancing uncomfortably close to the edge.</p>
<p>A few of the pookas started to climb the wall, towards Glimmer, and she knew she had to get away, but she didn't dare to leave Catra now. </p>
<p>Suddenly the millipedes cleared the rocks and with a rumble of chitin scraping against stone, started full speed against the fighters. </p>
<p>Catra had obviously waited for this moment. She disengaged from the pack leader and leaped to the cliff face, jumped again and sailed through the air, seemingly unaffected by gravity. She landed on top of the first millipede. She slashed at its eyes, distracting the furious monster from the looming precipice, and before the pack leader could react, the millipede rammed it over the edge, and fell towards the ground far, far below.</p>
<p>Catra howled in triumph, but as she did, the millipedes jaws snapped up and it managed to derail Catra's jump as she tried to get clear.</p>
<p>Glimmer saw her stumble, and fall, and follow the monsters over the edge.</p>
<p>Catra fell.</p>
<p>"CATRA!" Glimmer cried and before she even knew it, her feet were moving, and she jumped.</p>
<p>"What are you doing?" Catra gasped as Glimmer managed to grab hold of her in the air and they both fell towards the cliffs so far down below.</p>
<p>"We will survive this together" Glimmer shouted.</p>
<p>"We will die together," Catra retorted as the cliffs came closer.</p>
<p>"No we wont," Glimmer snarled. "I won't allow it."</p>
<p>And she teleported them safely down to the beach.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Daaaang. Catra is kinda badass</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0015"><h2>15. The sparkly part</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The sand was gold, the water azure and the sun was bright. Right here, right now, it was possible to forget all the horrible deaths that awaited them at every turn in this place. They sat in the warm sand and regained their breaths. Catra looked at Glimmer in wonder.</p><p>"You got your sparks back?"</p><p>"...I... yeah. I think I did."</p><p>Glimmer held up her hand and looked at it. A faint ball of sparks could be seen dancing over her fingers in the bright sun. She started to laugh. Catra laughed with her.</p><p>"Does that mean you can take us home?"</p><p>"I... no, I don't think so. I still have no idea how I did it in the first place, and without the moonstone I'm weak as a kitten.... sorry."</p><p>Catra smirked and slid out her claws for a demonstration of exactly how weak she thought that made Glimmer.</p><p>"You just saved us from certain death. That's something."</p><p>"Yeah, but that took all I had. Right now I don't think I could teleport us anywhere." Catra glanced at the cliff.</p><p>"Not even back to the camp?" Glimmer eyed the cliff hesitantly.</p><p>"Maybe I could try if I get to rest for... a few hours?"</p><p>"Or we just start walking," Catra laughed. "Save your sparks, Sparkles. They will come in handy."</p><p>- - -</p><p>When they finally got back to their camp, they gathered their things - including the pots and pans from the hiding place where Catra had stashed them away - and set out to find a new place. It was usually wise to put distance between themselves and the pooka, and they feared that the death of the pack leader would mean that other packs would try to muscle in. They preferred not to stick around and find out.</p><p>This time they dared a bit further inland. After a few days walk the came upon a plain of tall grass inter-spaced with isolated patches of trees that made for a pleasant alternative to the forest. While Catra searched for monster tracks, Glimmer poked around with the technology. There were quite a lot of machinery here, and she managed to salvage a lot useful pieces.</p><p>They moved around as usual, but they kept to the plains and soon got adapt at making camp in the tall grass. They found a large patch of some sort of ancient fiber material that was light enough to carry with them and which served as a make-shift protection against the rain. Otherwise they slept under the empty night sky, holding hands and snuggling close for warmth and intimacy. Food was plentiful (at least by Beast Island standards) with both fish and insects being easy to find, as well as a variety of edible plants they got better and better at identifying.</p><p>There was no denying it - things were looking up. But as they had to worry less about their immediate survival, they had more time to think of the world outside their island and the things they had left behind.</p><p>One night, Glimmer woke up to see Catra sitting wide awake, gaze lost at the horizon. Glimmer sat up and ambled over to her, and saw that Catra had tears in her eyes. Glimmer didn't say anything, but sat down next to Catra and hugged her. Catra gratefully hugged her back.</p><p>They sat so in silence for a little while.</p><p>"Is it OK if we talk about it?" Glimmer said with low voice. Catra nodded. Glimmer took a deep breath and released a few sparks, lighting up their little sleeping nook.</p><p>"Do you think we will ever get back?" Catra whispered eventually. Glimmer hugged her harder.</p><p>"Of course we will. Have you ever known Adora to give up on anything?"</p><p>Catra tensed. Glimmer stroke her chin. </p><p>"Kitten... you know she never gave up on you," she whispered. "She would have given everything for you to follow her to Brightmoon." Catra didn't answer, but she allowed Glimmer to nuzzle closer.</p><p>"What if I had?" she said with low voice. Glimmer looked up.</p><p>"What?"</p><p>"What if I had followed Adora to Brightmoon?" Catra repeated. "All angry and vindictive and jealous, stinking up your beautiful castle. What would you have thought of me?" Glimmer laughed.</p><p>"Oh, I would have been super annoyed with you." She sat up and made her best snooty face.</p><p>"'Vhat is this <i>savage</i> doing to the royal carpet," she said in high pitched voice. Catra smirked and Glimmer smiled at her.</p><p>"You would have been an absolute pest," she said with her normal voice, "And I would have been a perfect little <i>brat</i>."</p><p>"And can you just imagine how we would have acted around Adora?" Catra said, in better mood now, despite the sensitive topic. "Hey, Adora, pay attention to me! No, pay attention to me! No, <i>me</i>!" Glimmer laughed.</p><p>"And then, one night when you'd been even more of a pest than usual, I'd be so pissed with you," Glimmer said. "I'd find you in the garden or something where you'd have done something <i>outrageous</i> to the rose bush..."</p><p>"That bush will never be itself again," Catra filled in with a smug smile.</p><p>"And I'd just want to hit you, so I'd grab you by the neck like this..." Glimmer demonstrated.</p><p>"And I'd look into your eyes just like this..." Catra followed suit.</p><p>"And I'd be like... Wow I hate her, but those are some seriously pretty eyes..."</p><p>"And I'd be like... Heh, got her mad... which is kinda hot, actually."</p><p>"And then we'd be like... oh, so we're kissing now? That's a thing we're doing?"</p><p>They demonstrated. Eagerly.</p><p>"And then we'd..."</p><p>"That bush will never be itself again, I tell you."</p><p>They looked at each other and laughed, just a tad embarrassed.</p><p>"Can you just imagine" -Glimmer giggled- "when Adora would come running looking for us?" Catra laughed.</p><p>"And she'd be all 'Please don't kill each other', and we'd be all 'um... OK, we can promise we are not <i>killing</i> each other'." Glimmer laughed too. They leaned in for another kiss.</p><p>"You know," Glimmer mused. "We'll probably need to have that conversation with her eventually, when she rescues us." Catra's mood got more somber, and she didn't answer. Glimmer squeezed her hand.</p><p>"She will rescue us, Kitten," she said again. "She and Bow and Swift Wind and the princesses. They aren't leaving us."</p><p>"They aren't leaving <i>you</i>," Catra muttered. Glimmer caught her gaze.</p><p>"Adora will come for <i>you</i>, Catra, just as much as me."</p><p>"Then what," Catra muttered. Glimmer squeezed her hand again.</p><p>"Then we go to Brightmoon together." Catra gave her a sour look.</p><p>"Yeah, think you're fancy mom and fancy princess friends will just let a stray from the Horde slum around with the pretty princess?"</p><p>"If they know what's best for them, they will," Glimmer said with absolute certainty, and not without edge to her voice. "I love you Catra. I won't stop loving you when we leave this place. I'll never go anywhere you are not welcome, and I'll always make you welcome anywhere I go." Catra suddenly looked very vulnerable.</p><p>"You really want that?"</p><p>Glimmer gave her a surprised look.</p><p>"What are you talking about, of course I do?"</p><p>Catra looked away.</p><p>"Back there it won't be... here. It won't be just us and the monsters. It will be princesses and crystals and... fancy beds or whatever else you grew up with. What do you want me for if you get back all that?"</p><p>"Catra..."</p><p>"No, I mean it. And whatever has happened with the war, you'll be thrown right back in it. Boosting the moral of your tropes, heading back to the front lines to throw spark at Horde bots, fixing the alliance which will have gone to shit without you..."</p><p>"Catra..."</p><p>"If you have time you might even interrogate the horde prisoner in the dungeon."</p><p>"CATRA!"</p><p>"I'm just saying, what we have here, we won't have there."</p><p>"Of course we won't. We won't have to eat beetle legs for one thing. But that doesn't mean that we won't have <i>us</i> there." </p><p>Catra opened her mouth but Glimmer held up her hand.</p><p>"Catra, can I say something? Please?"</p><p>Catra closed her mouth and let go of Glimmer's hands. Both of them took a few deep breaths and sat up straight. They took each other's hands again. They looked at each other, suddenly very serious. They traded little nods.</p><p>"Catra..." Glimmer said with steady voice. "The Glimmer who lived in the palace of Brightmoon had a lot of things. She had clothes and a real bed and showers and never had to eat bugs and she even had friends, eventually... but she didn't have you. And she was poorer for it.</p><p>"The Glimmer who's coming back... she won't be the same princess who left. She won't fill the same slot. She'll not do things the way they were done. She will know, every day and every hour that she's alive and sane and <i>better</i>, because of <i>you</i>. She'll not want to loose that. And as for the war..." She squeezed Catra's hand.</p><p>"Do you really want to go back to be the Catra you were?"</p><p>There was a long silence. Catra's gaze was lost somewhere in the dark sky.</p><p>"I... I was good at it," she said at last. "Shadow Weaver was out of the way. I was a force captain. I was Hordak's second in command. I was finally getting respect. We even had fun, now and then. Me, Scorpia and," -she gave Glimmer an apologetic look- "Entrapta." She sighed. "It was what I always wanted."</p><p>Glimmer wriggled a hand from Catra and held it up, expression neutral. A silent question to speak. Catra nodded at her.</p><p>"You don't have to answer this question if you don't want to... but all this time, when I have been gushing about Adora or Bow or the princesses or mom looking for me, rescuing me... you have never once said a word about the Horde looking for you. Why? Seems like Hordak would want his second in command back?" Catra gave her a direct look.</p><p>"Because the Horde doesn't waste time on lost causes," she answered. Glimmer frowned.</p><p>"But... that's stupid. You almost had us beat at Brightmoon. You ran circles around us at Princess Prom. You're an asset for them."</p><p>"I <i>was</i> an asset. Now I got myself caught. That makes me a liability."</p><p>"But what about your friends? What about Scorpia? What about Entrapta?" Glimmer managed to say Entrapta's name without hesitation. Catra shrugged.</p><p>"Entrapta wouldn't even notice I was gone if she found a new wrench. Scorpia probably would look for me, she's an idiot like that. But Hordak wouldn't waste any time on me, and without me Shadow Weaver probably has wormed her way out of the cell by now. No way that creep wants me back to muddle up her plans."</p><p>"So what you're saying," Glimmer said slowly, "Is that the Horde has thrown away one of their best tacticians, one who know their capabilities in and out and who might be looking for a job in the 'kicking the shit out of Shadow Weaver' department." Catra gave Glimmer a surprised look.</p><p>"You worry about your place in Brightmoon, Catra?" Glimmer went on, a glow in her eyes. "Then let me tell you about it. It won't be as our prisoner - not when you return as the savior of the princess. It won't be as the princess' pet or bedwarmer - however interesting <i>that</i> idea might be," she grinned at that aside. Catra snorted and made an only half-annoyed little gesture. Glimmer winked at her and went on.</p><p>"Your place in Brightmoon would be as an integral part of the rebellion. You would help us take down the Horde. I've seen you fight. I've been on the opposite side of you when you plan and carry out a campaign. If we had you on our side we could push the Horde back to the Fright Zone in a week." She smiled a wicked little smile and bent closer to Catra. "And if it's still the respect of Hordak you are after... imagine his expression when he sees who has him beaten." Catra grinned at that.</p><p>"And Shadow Weaver?"</p><p>"I'd say a high ranking officer in the rebellion would definitely have to do something about that witch, don't you think?" They both grinned at each other now.</p><p>"That's a lovely sentiment, Glimmer, it truly is. But I doubt your rebellion be stupid enough to give a high ranking Horde soldier a position of authority just on the say-so of a princess."</p><p>"Why not?" Glimmer said offhandedly. "We did it with Adora. I'm totally vouching for you. And so will she."</p><p>Catra's features clouded.</p><p>"Do you really think so?"</p><p>"Of course she will." Catra looked like she still had her doubts, but she didn't say anything. Glimmer squeezed her hands.</p><p>"Catra... I know you are afraid. I know you think I will poof away one day and never come back. But this is not like when Adora left. I'm not leaving you. And I'm not <i>letting</i> you leave me just out of spite." Catra's eyes were suddenly were wide and very wet.</p><p>"You promise?" she whispered.</p><p>"I promise," Glimmer answered. She hesitated a moment and went on.</p><p>"Catra... can I ask you for a promise too?" Catra nodded, eyeing Glimmer in silence. Glimmer took a deep breath and looked her in the eyes.</p><p>"When Adora comes to save us... <i>please</i> let her. Don't run away this time. Don't fight her. Don't run back to the Horde." She caught Catra's eyes. "Don't leave me. Please?"</p><p>Catra hesitated, then she squeezed Glimmer's hands back.</p><p>"I promise," she whispered, tears in her eyes. She laughed a bit sheepishly, trying to take the edge of the sincere moment.</p><p>"Since my career prospects are pretty much busted in the Horde I can just as well try my luck in the rebellion." Glimmer smiled at her, the gleeful smirk only partly hiding the deep, heartfelt gratitude beneath it.</p><p>"Oh, I heard a high commander of the alliance has an opening for an... ah, <i>partner</i>." Catra smirked back.</p><p>"Really. Must be a tough job to land." Glimmer raised an eyebrow.</p><p>"Extremely so. She only accepts the best of the best, so you better get in a lot of practice."</p><p>Catra barred her fangs.</p><p>"I thought you would never ask."</p><p>And then they didn't say much more of anything that night, but they made a lot of happy noises, and it was quite some time until Catra slept in Glimmer's arms, safe and happy.</p><p>The next morning they slept in. The monsters seemed to take it more easy too, these days, and it was a long time since the vines had been more than an annoyance. Catra surprised Glimmer with breakfast, even managing a passable tea made from herbs that grew here and there on the plain. They ate together, curled up in the sleeping nook. Glimmer was in touchy-feely mood and nibbled just as much on Catra as her porridge. Catra only did token resistance and clearly enjoyed the attention.</p><p>"Glimmer... can I say something upsetting?"</p><p>Glimmer immediately put the bowl away and sat up. She took Catra's hands.</p><p>"Of course, Kitten."</p><p>"That thing you said yesterday about Adora rescuing us..."</p><p>"Yes?"</p><p>Catra took a deep breath.</p><p>"The thing with that is that it might... take a while."</p><p>"You don't think she will come," Glimmer said with low voice. "It's OK, but I think you are wrong."</p><p>Catra laughed, a rueful laughter.</p><p>"You know that one of the things I love most with you is your optimism. You never give up, even when you really should." Catra sighed and went on in small voice. "You never gave up on me."</p><p>Glimmer's eyes were filling with tears, and it was itching in her to hug Catra hard. But she didn't. Catra was working up to something and their rules dictated she got to set the pace for the conversation.</p><p>"I'll never give up on you," she whispered instead. Catra gave her a teary smile of her own.</p><p>"I just wanted to say that IF Adora is... delayed in rescuing us... if we have to stay here for ...longer than we would hope... I think we can manage. I think we can beat the island. I think we can survive..."</p><p>She took a deep breath.</p><p>"...if we do it together."</p><p>Glimmer's eyes were very large and very shiny.</p><p>"What are you saying, Catra?" she whispered.</p><p>Catra gave her a small smile and perhaps unconsciously fingered her necklace.</p><p>"That I'm not giving up on you either, Sparkles." </p><p>Glimmer made a strangled little noise. Catra ignored it and plowed on.</p><p>"When we need shelter we can build, and when we need food we can hunt and when one of us is hurt the other can take care of her and... when that damned signal is too loud for me to sleep, and I see you snoring next to me..." -Glimmer made a weak attempt to look offended, which was completely ruined by how utterly flustered her face was - "then I know I will be safe, and that I can keep you safe too. Until the night is over. For another day. For another week. For as long as it takes."</p><p>She squeezed Glimmer's hands.</p><p>"Listen, Glimmer. I would have been dead by now if it weren't for you. I will never make it without you. But together we can. I just want you to know that for as long as we are stuck here, for as long as we stick together, I will take care of you, as good as I can." She swallowed. "I love you, Glimmer. I want to be with you. Always. For as long as you let me. Please let me."</p><p>"Are you asking me to marry you?" Glimmer whispered, hardly able to form words for all the warm emotions that welled up in her. Catra gave her a confused look.</p><p>"I don't know? Am I? What's 'marry'?" Glimmer teared up again.</p><p>"Marriage... it's when you love each other so much you want to be together for as long as can be... maybe even for the rest of your lives. Do everything together. Be the one who is always there for the other..." Catra looked thoughtful for a moment.</p><p>"Yeah, that sounds like what I said. Do you want to marriage me, Glimmer?"</p><p>"..."</p><p>"Um... you are kinda leaking glitter, Sparkles, are you...?"</p><p>"Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes! I will marry you, Catra. I love you," Glimmer whispered with a voice choking up from emotions. "I'll never leave you. Not on this island, not off it. However long it takes, it will be the two of us. Together. Always."</p><p>"Glimmer..."</p><p>"Catra..."</p><p>They finally got to the kissing part. It lasted for a long, long time.</p><p>- - - </p><p>Glimmer had serious plans for some of the old tech they found. If they cobbled enough of it together they could build a fence and run power through it. Shield away an area from the monsters.</p><p>"A little homestead of our own!" she fluttered her eye-lashes.</p><p>"You're nesting, Sparkles."</p><p>"With you, Kitten."</p><p>Catra could only laugh. It wouldn't work of course. the monsters would knock it down or the rain would wash it away or... something. Beast Island wouldn't let them keep something like that. But Glimmer was just downright adorable as she made plans and tinkered and... glowed.</p><p>That was not a metaphor.</p><p>Catra helped as much as she could. Dragged in old tech she found, cleared the area.... hmmmm, if they built an oven here they could build a food storage here and...</p><p>"You're nesting with me too, Kitten?"</p><p>"What? No! Humoring your project is all." She did a bad Scorpia impersonation. "It's important to... I don't know... gosh... support the one you love, you know!" They laughed.</p><p>"But seriously, if we move the oven <i>there</i> we could reroute water from the stream and set up a pipe by the workbench..."</p><p>"Build a stone oven on that soggy ground?" Catra bit back. "It would shift in a month."</p><p>"Yeah? Weren't you the one who told me it wouldn't stand that long anyway?"</p><p>"That's no excuse! If we are to build it, we can just as well build it right."</p><p>Honestly, these days they could hardly hear the signal of Beast Island at all for all the happy chatter.</p><p>Even their arguments - and those still happened often enough - had a different edge to them. Rather than the poisonous barbs or lethal strikes from before, it felt more like a sparring match than serious threats. The could interrupt themselves mid shouting and just share a knowing smile.</p><p>
  <i>Yeah, scream your head off as much as you like. We both know this will end with kisses in an hour or two anyway.</i>
</p><p>Sometimes they lost track of the argument completely and jumped right to the kissing part.</p><p>Catra fished. Glimmer built. They still moved around, but more often than not they re-used old camp sites, increasing the comfort of familiarity. They improved their equipment. They built little emergency stashes. Every day they got a little bit better equipped at dealing with their surroundings.</p><p>They argued, the laughed, they loved. Every morning they woke up in each other's arms, and every night they fell asleep the same way. They started to feel that maybe, just maybe it was possible to build something on Beast Island that would last, after all.</p><p>They were wrong.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>They are married now :-)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0016"><h2>16. No one leaves Beast Island</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Warning:  Vicious fighting and themes of depression</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was Glimmer who saw the pooka, just a glowing eye in the distance as she hurried back to their camp one evening. Catra reacted to the news as expected.</p>
<p>"Then we leave tonight."</p>
<p>"But I'm almost done with the fence," Glimmer complained. It could keep us safe, we could..."</p>
<p>"Not against pooka." Catra sighed and took Glimmers hands.</p>
<p>"I know, Sparkles, I know. I want to stay too. But we can't let them get wind of our homestead. We'll come back in a few days, when they have moved on."</p>
<p>So they packed their pots and pans and got moving. They rarely moved at night if they could avoid it. More monsters were active. But they did manage to get some distance between them and the homestead before they decided it was getting too risky to move on and found themselves a sleeping tree.</p>
<p>It was still dark, and Glimmer felt like she had barely closed her eyes when Catra shook her awake. She leaned over her with worried eyes and silenced her with a quick kiss before Glimmer could ask what was going on.</p>
<p>"We need to move, Glimmer. They're out there."</p>
<p>Glimmer felt a lump of ice forming in her stomach.</p>
<p>They climbed down and slunk through the undergrowth. The night was full of sounds and smells. The signal of the island droned louder than it had for a long time. Catra led and Glimmer followed. Sometimes Catra abruptly stopped and they had to wait, barely daring to breath, until she kept walking again. Sometimes she abruptly changed direction. At one point she led them up the trees and they waited pressed to the trunk as <i>something</i> passed under them, sniffling and snuffling.</p>
<p>Glimmer knew Catra had much better senses than her, especially at night. Most of the time she didn't know what made Catra chose to stop, or walk, or hide. She saw her ears turn this way or that, her head move around as she tasted the air. Her tail was alert. Her eyes shone bright.</p>
<p>There was something surreal about following Catra through the darkness, hunted by unseen enemies. In another world, in another time it could have been herself who was out there, searching for Catra, Glimmer reflected. A magical foe who could jump at you from out of nowhere and kill with a touch. She didn't quite know how that insight made her feel.</p>
<p>She was very glad she was with Catra this night, not the one Catra was hiding from.</p>
<p>Eventually they emerged from the woods. With sinking heart, Glimmer realized that she knew where they were.</p>
<p>"The glass forest?" she whispered. Catra nodded grimly. Glimmer took her hand.</p>
<p>"Catra..." Catra gave her a rueful smile.</p>
<p>"It's bad, Sparkles. There are... a lot of them out there. I haven't heard anything like this since we got the Island." Glimmer looked at her with large, scared eyes.</p>
<p>"We will still make it though, right?"</p>
<p>Catra only hesitated for a micro second.</p>
<p>"Of course we will, Sparkles."</p>
<p>They had some of their emergency stashes in the middle of the glass forest, and Catra led them towards one of them. Glimmer was anxious to get inside the hiding place, but Catra insisted on waiting. So they spent nearly half an hour pressed into a crack in the crystalline rock wall. Catra was vigilantly watching while Glimmer felt herself nodding off again. She had almost fallen asleep when she felt Catra tense. She looked up, and close to what should have been their safe place they saw the lantern-like eyes of the pooka.</p>
<p>She felt Catra's warning hand on her arm and forced herself to remain quiet. They waited like that, pressed against the rock and each other, for quite some time until the pooka moved on. Then Catra led them in another direction.</p>
<p>When the sun finally rose they entered a rocky landscape with bushes and small trees. It was harder for them to hide here, but the same was true for the monsters.</p>
<p>"We're not staying in the glass forest?" Glimmer asked. Catra shook her head.</p>
<p>"Not if they're already sniffing around."</p>
<p>"Then where are we going," Glimmer asked. Catra hesitated.</p>
<p>"Were are we going?" Glimmer repeated. Catra turned to her, face apologetic.</p>
<p>"Glimmer..."</p>
<p>"You don't know, do you?" Glimmer whispered. Catra sighed.</p>
<p>"They're on our trail."</p>
<p>"So? We have lost them before."</p>
<p>"We've always had somewhere to run before." She looked around and made a frustrated gesture. "They are everywhere. It's not only the pooka. It's the millipedes, it's the worms. There are things out there I haven't even heard before." Glimmer put a hand on Catra's shoulder.</p>
<p>"We will still make it, Catra." Catra gave her a long look, eyes wet.</p>
<p>"I'm not sure we will, Glimmer," she whispered. "I don't think I can hide us." Glimmer shook her head.</p>
<p>"They haven't found us so far."</p>
<p>"But when they do..."</p>
<p>"When they do we fight and get away. And if they follow, we trick them. And if the aren't fooled, we pitch them against each other and run in the chaos and then we will have bought us time to think of another option." Catra couldn't help chuckling.</p>
<p>"You never give up, do you, Sparkles."</p>
<p>"You know the answer to that one, Kitten." </p>
<p>Catra sighed.</p>
<p>"Fine. Let's keep moving, then. We'll circle back towards the hills. If nothing else we can probably hide in the ravines a little while."</p>
<p>"That's the spirit."</p>
<p>They moved slowly, prioritizing stealth above speed. They often changed direction, often had to stay hidden. Catra was constantly listening, sniffing, tasting the air. Suddenly she tensed.</p>
<p>'Wait here,' she mouthed and Glimmer nodded. She pressed down towards the ground, ready to run.</p>
<p>If felt like hours until the brushes moved again and Catra slunk out. She had blood on her claws, but there was a spark in her eyes. She grinned at Glimmer and motioned at her to continue.</p>
<p>It wasn't until they were halfway over the plain the monsters found them. Seemingly out of nowhere a high pitched cry was heard, and another one, and another one. Glimmer barely had time to react before Catra dragged her up from the ground and yelled at her run. Glimmer did, not looking back. Behind her, she heard the cries of pooka, the roar of larger monsters and Catra's snarls of fury.</p>
<p>It felt like an eternity, but probably wasn't more than a minute until Catra caught up with her. She ran on all fours, claws out, fangs barred. Glimmer couldn't help but feel pride, amidst the fear and rush of the chase, about this passionate, powerful, <i>dangerous</i> woman being by her side. She felt in her heart that as long as she was with Catra, there was nothing Beast Island could do to truly hurt her.</p>
<p>"Keep running for that stone formation," Catra cried and abruptly jumped to the left, fangs biting for the throat of a pooka Glimmer hadn't even seen hiding. Another pooka came for her as Catra was busy. Glimmer dodged and made a quick jump to the side. She gave the pooka a hard kick in the side, loosing its footing. Then she picked up the pace and started sprinting. She obviously couldn't outrun it for more than a few seconds. But she didn't have to.</p>
<p>She only had to keep the distance until her wife caught up with it.</p>
<p>She heard a surprised yelp and then a scream of pain, abruptly cut short and she smiled, a hard smile, and slowed down to her usual running pace. Catra didn't join her, and more snarls from behind her told her that there were more monsters keeping her busy.</p>
<p>In front of her, the ground exploded as a worm, wide as a barrel, emerged from the dirt and rocks. She abruptly changed direction and ran in a zig-zag pattern. The enormous head swayed over her, trying to predict her moments. The moment the monster struck, she abruptly jumped back, and when the worm rose its head again she grabbed an appendix and followed it. At the highest point she let go and got an overview of the area as she sailed through the air.</p>
<p>She didn't like what she saw. The grass was moving in all directions, and there were larger monsters moving towards them. There was nothing for it, they had to get out of here.</p>
<p>Glimmer had a rare skill not many people get the opportunity or reason to adapt, which was the ability to control her falling. For most people it would just be the final touch to a well executed jump, but for someone with the ability to teleport it was ever so useful. So when she had located Catra - easy enough, from the wounded pooka slinking away - she directed her fall in that direction and readied herself.</p>
<p>"Catra!" she yelled, and Catra looked up to see her wife falling towards her. With a last vicious slash at a pooka eye she jumped, and Glimmer caught her in the air. Then, before they could crash into the ground, Glimmer teleported them away to the chagrin of the howling pooka.</p>
<p>They emerged by the rock formation in the other edge of the field, close to the hills that had been their goal. They immediately pressed to the ground and kept as silent as they could. Eventually Catra dared raising her head slightly and carefully looked around. She gave Glimmer a short nod and they sat up.</p>
<p>"That's one jump," Catra said grimly. "How much sparks do you have left?"</p>
<p>"Two or three more jumps," Glimmer whispered. Catra grimaced.</p>
<p>"Save it until you really have to. We have a long day ahead of us." Catra hesitated and then gave Glimmer a smile. "But well done."</p>
<p>Glimmer beamed.</p>
<p>They stayed among the rocks until Catra deemed it safe to move on. When she did, they slowly crept towards the ravines in the hills. Plenty of places to hide, for them and for the monsters. They crept forward, step by step, often staying put. Sometimes Glimmer heard the monsters sniffing around after them, most of the time all she had for guidance was Catra's body language. </p>
<p>The signal was stronger now, making it hard to concentrate. Glimmer forced herself to not listen to it, to focus on the sounds around them. The wind in the grass, the rustles of leaves that might or might not be caused by monsters sneaking up on them. The distant cries of bird and pookas. Catra.</p>
<p>Catra moving just in front of her; strong, alert, capable. Glimmer focused on her, and it helped her drown out the signal from the island.</p>
<p>Catra froze, and Glimmer mirrored her. Something large moved just beyond the next ridge. They waited until it had passed.</p>
<p>Catra turned to Glimmer and made a frustrated face.</p>
<p>"Just as many monsters here," she muttered. "I've no idea what got them so riled up."</p>
<p>"I think they follow the signal," Glimmer whispered as an answer.</p>
<p>"Just what we need," Catra muttered. "They must have come from all over the island."</p>
<p>"Does that mean there are less of them inland now?"</p>
<p>Catra shrugged.</p>
<p>"Your guess is as good as mine, Sparkles." Glimmer hesitated, then she made a little movement to Catra to come closer. She sat down in the grass and took Catra's hand. After a sleight hesitation, Catra joined her.</p>
<p>"Kitten..." Glimmer whispered. "What are our options?" Catra made a helpless little shrug.</p>
<p>"Can't fight them, that will just attract more. Can't hide for long, not with pooka sniffing around. As long as we keep moving we'll be able to evade them... if we're lucky. But we'll only be lucky for so long."</p>
<p>Glimmer caught Catra's gaze and held it. Catra's first impulse was to evade it, but she thought better of it. Her shoulders relaxed somewhat as she accepted the intimacy. Glimmer saw the fear in her wife's eyes, just behind the cool focus that kept her going.</p>
<p>"You know I won't let them hurt you, right?" She bent closer. "I'm here, Catra. When the dust settles, I'll still be here. This island will never take me from you." Catra's eyes grew blank and she let out a little sob. Glimmer stood up and pulled Catra with her.</p>
<p>"We go inland," she decided. Catra gave her a scared look.</p>
<p>"You've been there, Sparkles. You know what it's like." Glimmer shrugged.</p>
<p>"The signal is stronger. Big deal. Last time we were there we were alone. We are not alone any longer." </p>
<p>"There will still be monsters."</p>
<p>"Not if they are all here. Now lead the way."</p>
<p>Catra looked like she might have more objections, but Glimmer's confidence was something she desperately needed right now, and it wasn't like she had any better ideas. Reluctantly she tore her gaze away from Glimmer's bright eyes and started moving forward again, carefully keeping track of their surroundings with eyes, ears and nose.</p>
<p>Glimmer did her best to ignore the sinking feeling in her stomach. Catra needed her to be the brave, confident one so she did her best to put on the queenly face.</p>
<p>She just hoped she wasn't leading them to their doom.</p>
<p>The signal steadily grew stronger as they moved inland.</p>
<p>They came to an area with more tech, with forced them to move even more slowly. The good news was that it made it harder for monsters to sneak up on them. The bad news was that the technology itself could be just as deadly. Glimmer took the lead, testing and prodding. Quite often they had to take long detours.</p>
<p>"I wonder why the first ones left all this stuff just laying around," she muttered.</p>
<p>"To get rid of it," Catra answered in a snappish tone. "That's what Beast Island is, remember? A place to get rid your trash." She turned her head away with an annoyed shake. Glimmer gave her a worried look.</p>
<p>"Catra..."</p>
<p>"Hey, don't sweat it Sparkles. We got to be trash together, so that's something, right?"</p>
<p>Glimmer stopped and held out her hand. After a short hesitation Catra took it.</p>
<p>"That's everything, Catra."</p>
<p>She made a wry smile.</p>
<p>"And this is trash that the Island won't get rid of this easily. Now come on. That one is a zapper so we'll have to take the long way round."</p>
<p>The held hands for a little while after that, until the terrain forced them to let go.</p>
<p>After a few hours they took an uneasy rest inside the wreck of an old machine, Glimmer trying to sleep with Catra keeping watch.</p>
<p>When she woke up, the fog had rolled in, thick as soup. All sounds were muffled and distant, and partly hidden by the droning signal of the Island. Glimmer sat up and looked around. Catra was nowhere to be seen. She crawled out of the machine, out in the mist, eyes and ears open.</p>
<p>No Catra.</p>
<p>Had she left?</p>
<p>Had... something happened to her?</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>How mad would you be at me if I ended the fic at this point?</p>
<p>(I won't. Don't worry.)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0017"><h2>17. Too late</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Warning: Themes of hardship, isolation and panic attacks</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <i>Catra walked as fast as she dared through the hostile landscape. She wanted to run, but she knew she had to pace herself. She was still several days from the place where she and Glimmer had fought, and she couldn't run all the way.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>Her stomach grumbled and she grabbed a bug from the ground and threw it in her mouth. She chewed as she walked and spat out the parts she couldn't digest. She didn't dare stopping, didn't dare resting.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>She had to get to Glimmer before it was too late.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>It probably already was too late.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>The sparkle princess had probably teleported home the minute she got a good nights rest or whatever she needed to recharge her powers. Catra had been such an idiot to leave her.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>'She tried to kill me,' she told herself.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>'Of course she did, I'm the enemy,' she answered.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>'So why would things be different this time, even if I find her?'</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>She had no answer to that.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>She desperately needed someone to talk to. Even slinging insults back and forth would be an improvement. Catra had no idea how long she had been alone now, desperately searching for a Horde ship that wouldn't come, alone with her thoughts and the monsters and the signal.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>She shuddered.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>She needed someone. anyone. Right now, there was only one person available. Unless it was already too late and there was no one. Unless the princess had already gotten herself killed, or the vines got her or... or she had left her.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>She had to get to Glimmer before it was too late.</i>
</p>
<p>...this was not right, was it? </p>
<p>This had already happened, hadn't it?</p>
<p>She had found Glimmer. She had forgiven her. They had made peace. They had made love. They...</p>
<p>Hadn't they?</p>
<p>They had promised each other to always be there for each other.</p>
<p>Hadn't they?</p>
<p>So why wasn't Catra there for Glimmer now?</p>
<p>
  <i>Catra quickened her steps. The trees leaned in from all directions, covered with sharp angles, the blue pulsing vines that tingled with power when she touched them. She rarely saw the sky and she worried she was walking in circles. </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>There were monsters close by, she knew it. She heard the shuffling of chitin against stone. She heard slithering and crawling sounds. She glimpsed the lantern-like eyes of the pooka from between the trunks.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>She stayed as low as she could, crawling like an animal over the ground. But she didn't dare to stop. </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>She thought she heard a sound then, a human voice crying out in fear and pain.</i>
</p>
<p><i></i>Glimmer?<i></i></p>
<p>
  <i>She ran. Ran as fast as she could. Glimmer was here. Glimmer was in danger. Glimmer needed her.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>Why couldn't she find her?</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>The vines were in the way. Tripping her up, getting in her face, She had to slash her way through. She thought she could see movements, little glimpses of Glimmer's dress or hair, but every time she managed to fight herself through, whatever she had seen was gone.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>She had to get to Glimmer before it was too late.</i>
</p>
<p>This wasn't right. This wasn't happening.</p>
<p>
  <i>She stood in a glade. Everything around her was still. Even the signal from the island seemed subdued. In the middle was a... contraption, blinking steadily with a rhythmic, blue light. On the edge of her hearing, Catra could hear pulses corresponding to the light. She carefully crept closer.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>Technology was common on the island, but this was different. Most of the pieces she found were half covered in moss and lied were they had been tossed aside, eons ago or where a passing monster had knocked them over.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>This looked like someone had tinkered, put pieces together, built something.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>Someone like... Glimmer?</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>That meant Glimmer hadn't teleported away first chance. Either because she couldn't or because she... wouldn't? </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>Did she wait for me?</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>With pounding heart, Catra walked up to the contraption. She read the letters that were scratched into a metal plate. She read Glimmer's name.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>and her own.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>Tears formed in her eyes.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>Glimmer hadn't left her.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>She was still on the island.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>Catra could still find her and then...</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>...she didn't quite know. She didn't dare think too much on the next part.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>But whatever happened, if she found Glimmer she wouldn't be alone.</i>
</p>
<p>Nothing of this made sense. She had to find Glimmer. If she found Glimmer everything would make sense.</p>
<p>
  <i>The pooka were looking for her. Lantern-like eyes gleamed from every tree, from every shadow. Their howls echoed through the forest. She ran, ran, ran. Had to get away from them, had to find Glimmer before they did.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>But the vines got in the way. They snared her arms, her legs, her tail. She slashed to get free. She cried for Glimmer to hear her, but her voice was drowned out by the signal, which was now threatening to deafen her.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>She had to get to Glimmer before it was too late.<br/></i>
</p>
<p>It probably already was too late.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I added this chapter after I had finished the entire rest of the fic. I felt the situation called for some surreal horror from Catra's perspective.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0018"><h2>18. We won't die here</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Warning: Vicious descriptions of fights with blood and gore. Themes of depression and hardship.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Glimmer carefully peeked out from the temporary shelter. She couldn't see more than a few meters in the fog. There was a sharp smell, vaguely sulfuric, which she had come to associated with some of the leaking technology.</p><p>There was no sign of Catra. </p><p>Glimmer chewed on her lip. Her brain suggested all sorts of scenarios, each one more horrible than the next, for what might have happened. She envisioned Catra fighting for her life, or lying hurt or injured, just a stone's throw away and in desperate need of Glimmer to save her.</p><p>But at the same time, she knew that running blindly through the fog was a sure-fire way to get hurt, attract monsters, or worse. Also, she had no idea where to start searching.</p><p>Catra was just out scouting ahead, right?</p><p>She would be back any second, right?</p><p>Glimmer stared out in to fog, willing it it part, willing it to reveal Catra coming strolling through it, without a care in the world and with that cocksure smirk on her lips.</p><p>Nothing.</p><p>She closed her eyes and listened as hard as she could.</p><p>No sign of their pursuers.</p><p>No sign of Catra.</p><p>All she heard was the signal of Beast Island. Louder than ever.</p><p>She had to keep moving.</p><p>But where would she even go?</p><p>And how would Catra find her again if she did?</p><p>Glimmer crouched down and took a few, hesitant steps out in the mist.</p><p>The landscape looked even more surreal than usual in the mist. Tree trunks loomed out of nowhere. The steady blue light of the vines creating an unearthly, diffused glow.</p><p>Glimmer stopped and forced herself to think.</p><p>If Catra had left to scout ahead, she would have kept to the sides of the ravine, right? Reduce the risk for ambush. Leave her an option for escape where the larger monsters couldn't follow.</p><p>Slowly, carefully, Glimmer worked her way over to where she remembered she would find the cliff-side. She followed it, inching her way forward step by step, and finally she was rewarded for her care with a sign. A soft impression of a paw print.</p><p>Catra had been here.</p><p>Emboldened, Glimmer moved forward. She found more tracks, more signs. Paw prints, broken twigs, slashed vines.</p><p>Catra had taught her how to track.</p><p>She was getting increasingly worried the further she came. The tracks were getting more and more easy to read, which meant Catra was getting sloppy. </p><p>Was she deliberately trying to be obvious? leave her a trail to follow? To lure monsters away from where Glimmer was sleeping?</p><p>Or had something happened to her?</p><p>Glimmer found Catra behind the next corner. She was unconscious and nearly entirely covered in vines. Her breathing was shallow. She held the seashell necklace Glimmer had given her so hard it cut into her hand.</p><p>"<i>Catra!</i>"</p><p>Blind for everything except her wife, Glimmer rushed forward. She tore at the vines keeping Catra trapped, but she was stuck tight. Glimmer fumbled in her pouch for the knife and started hacking at them.</p><p>Catra opened her eyes, slightly. They were clouded and unfocused. A sob escaped her lips.</p><p>"Can't find you, Glimmer," she whispered. "I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry..."</p><p>"I'm here Catra. We are <i>not</i> giving up," Glimmer snarled. Catra made a pained noise and closed her eyes.</p><p>"Sorry," she mumbled with despair in her voice. "I'm so sorry... sorry... sorry."</p><p>Glimmer finally tore Catra free and dragged her to her feet. Not for the first time she marveled over how small her wife truly was. It was like if Catra's energy and personality extended far outside her body, and with that energy gone only the small, fragile woman that Glimmer could easily carry remained.</p><p>She managed to carry Catra over to a little hollow beneath a giant tree. It was not much of a shelter, but it was better than being out in the open. She put her down on the ground and did her best to make her comfortable. Catra's eyes were wide opened but did not seem to take in her surroundings. She shivered.</p><p>Glimmer desperately embraced Catra, trying to give her as much body heat as possible. The skin contact seemed to calm her down somewhat. Glimmer took a deep breath and summed her magic. She did not have much, but she had enough sparks to keep her wife warm.</p><p>The sparks flowed from Glimmer's hand into Catra's chest in a steady stream, a gentle flow of life, of love. Glimmer looked her in the eyes.</p><p>"I'm here, Catra," she whispered. "I will always be here for you." </p><p>Eventually Catra stopped shiver and closed her eyes. Her breathing became more steady. Glimmer took a deep breath and sat up. Catra seemed to be sleeping a normal sleep now - Glimmer had no idea how long since she last did - and could hopefully get some rest. Now, all they had to do was...</p><p>Out of the mist, just a few meters away, came a lone pooka. It walked slowly, lantern eye swinging back and forth. It froze as it saw Glimmer. She saw it's muscles tense as it prepared to slink back into the mist...</p><p>She teleported. One moment she cradled Catra, next moment she furiously wrestled the pooka. It growled and trashed, but as long as she was on it, it didn't have time to howl properly. </p><p>"Oh no, you don't, precious," Glimmer snarled. Ignoring the claws that dug into her she managed to keep the jaws away from her with one hand while the other dug out the knife from her pouch. With grim determination she slit its throat, then she held it down to the ground, held the jaws shut, as the monster bled out. </p><p>She stood up and looked around. Catra was still lying on the ground. She knew she should move her, knew that where one pooka went, others were sure to follow.</p><p>She just wasn't sure how far she would be able to go while carrying Catra.</p><p>She had sparks enough for one more teleportation, two at the most. She supposed she could poof away with Catra? But where?</p><p>And what if they got cornered and she needed her remaining sparks for a quick escape?</p><p>She quickly returned to Catra and pushed leaves and dirt over her. She broke a power cell from her pouch and spread its stinking content around her sleeping wife. It wouldn't fool the pooka more than a moment if they came close, but maybe it could delay them getting wind of her from a distance.</p><p>Then she quickly crawled away through the mist. She knew the content from the power cell wouldn't hide her smell long, but hopefully it would at least make it a little harder for them to track her. The mist made it difficult for her to find what she needed, but there was plenty of old tech lying around, and soon she had rigged up a makeshift zapper next to the dead pooka. The critical part was connecting the power cell without getting zapped herself. She only had one try, and she had to work quick, with whatever tools she had manage to throw in her pouch as they left.</p><p>She didn't get zapped.</p><p>Then came the yucky part. Gritting her teeth she cut the dead pooka open. It was tough work to saw through skin and muscles with her little knife. Blood flowed and entrails spilled out on the ground, and her hands and arms were soon covered with the sticky content of the dead monster. She turned her head away, took a deep breath, and then she smeared blood over her body, her face and legs and - oh she would kill every last pooka if she got out of this alive - her hair. </p><p>Then she did the same to the sleeping Catra. That she didn't wake up was more proof of how badly she needed to sleep. She added some broken branches to the make-shift camouflage and made sure to add enough space for herself to stay hidden next to Catra.</p><p>Then she waited.</p><p>She listened in silence to Catra's steady breathing, to the noise from the mist and from the signal of the Island.</p><p>"Not this time," she muttered under her breath.</p><p>She was in luck. The first monster to emerge from the mist, drawn by the smell of the dead pooka, was a crab-like creature, not much larger than the pooka itself. Glimmer knew it was a scavenger, easy to avoid and normally not much of a problem. This time though, it would help with the camouflage. </p><p>She waited until it was almost upon the pooka, and then she connected the cables. The energy from the power cells lashed out and the creature died immediately, legs twitching in spasms.</p><p>For anyone with eyes and nose the scene now smelled and looked like two monsters that had been fried by a zapper. A clear warning for smarter scavengers to stay away, and would hopefully be enough to hide the two women from the sniffing noses of the pooka.</p><p>They emerged from the mist just a little time later. Two of them. Lantern-eyes glowing, noses sniffling. They stopped a little while from the dead monsters and eyed them suspiciously. Glimmer sat ready with the cables, but when they started to move again it was in a slow circle, centered on the zapper. </p><p>They were suspicious, she could tell. They smelled her and Catra, besides the dead bodies and the gunk from the power cells. They spent a long time by the vines where Catra had been trapped, and then they slowly worked their way back to the center. </p><p>All the time Glimmer forced herself to remain still, remain calm, not give them away.</p><p>Finally one of the pooka ventured forward and slowly stuck its nose closer to the dead pooka on the ground. Glimmer didn't know if it could feel her own scent over the blood. She waited until its nose almost pressed against the cadaver, then she connected the wires again.</p><p>The pooka yelped and flew backwards. The other took several steps back in the mist. The power cells had lost most of its charge when she killed the crab monster, so this time the pooka survived. She felt confident she had given it reason to stay away, though, and hopefully sold it on the illusion of a zapper and nothing else killing their pack mate.</p><p>She listened to it yelping as it ran away through the mist. Then she couldn't hear it any more.</p><p>Glimmer waited.</p><p>Nothing. </p><p>Maybe she could...</p><p>It was pure luck, just a random fluctuation in the mist for a moment granting her a better view of the area. That's what allowed her to see just a glimpse of a lantern-like eye scanning the area from the next ridge over.</p><p>
  <i>They know we are here, somewhere.</i>
</p><p><i>They are waiting for us to move.</i>.</p><p>She sank down in her hideout again, next to the sleeping Catra. Her heart was beating. That had been close.</p><p>So, waiting it was then. If nothing else, it gave her a chance to rest and recover some sparks, and hopefully Catra would regain some of her strength as well. With the two of them awake... well, then it would be the pooka's turn to flee, wouldn't it?</p><p>Time passed. The mist rolled on. Sometimes lighter, sometimes heavier, but never entirely lifting. Catra slept. Glimmer started to nod off herself. She knew it was risky, but since being still was their best option it was probably just as well she got some rest.</p><p>She sat there in silence and listened to the signal.</p><p>Why did she go to all this effort when the monsters would get her sooner or later anyway?</p><p>Couldn't she just relax and let the inevitable happen</p><p>Was it really worth all this suffering for just another hour or another day? </p><p>
  <i>Yes, because that's one hour or day closer to Adora and Bow rescuing us.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Yes, because that's one hour or day to think of another option.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Yes, because that's one hour or day more together with Catra.</i>
</p><p>She opened her eyes and cut away the vines that were creeping towards her.</p><p>The Island would not get them.</p><p>The vines had started to take an interest in Catra as well, and she cleared them away. She worked slowly and methodically, avoiding any quick movements that might catch the eyes of the pooka. Catra whined softly in her sleep and Glimmer put a worried hand on her forehead. She didn't feel warmer than usual. Probably just the exhaustion and the signal playing tricks with her mind. </p><p>Glimmer was seriously starting to hate that signal.</p><p>And then the pooka returned. Five of them this time. Melting out of the fog like ghosts, their large, glowing eyes heralding their presence. </p><p>They carefully sniffed the corpses of the dead monsters, not going to close. Just as well, there probably wasn't enough power left for another zapp. </p><p>The pooka circled the cadavers, like earlier, and stopped to sniff the vines that had held Catra. One by one they satisfied their curiosity and melted back in the fog again. Only two remained. One trying to work up courage to step closer to the cadavers, the other...</p><p>Crap.</p><p>The other sniffed the vines that led to Catra and Glimmer's hideout. As glimmer watched, it tensed and then ran along the vine, right towards them.</p><p>Time then, for the second power cell.</p><p>Glimmer pressed the second pair of cables together, and even as the pooka looked up and saw her, the cadavers exploded. Flesh and blood flew everywhere and for a few moments anyone relying on their nose to make sense of the world would have their work cut of for them.</p><p>The pooka that had spotted Glimmer leapt, jaws open, and Glimmer unleashed a ball of sparkles in its face. It yelped and flinched to the side, giving Glimmer time to pin it to the ground and cut its throat. As she was finished with her grisly work she looked up and saw the remaining pooka slinking out in the mist with one last look at her.</p><p>Double crap. So much for remaining hidden.</p><p>"Catra!" she cried. "Now would be an excellent time to wake up."</p><p>She backed up to their hideout and roughly shook Catra. She mumbled something in her sleep, but didn't wake up. Glimmer tried again with the same result. Out in the mist she heard the pooka howl, and another one picked up the howl. And another one.</p><p>Triple crap.</p><p>She was out of tricks. She hardly could defend them against an entire pack with only a knife (Catra could have done it), and if she didn't get Catra to wake up, there was no way she could carry her.</p><p>"CATRA!" she screamed and shook her wife as hard as she could. The unconscious Catra flapped back and forth like a rag-doll, but she didn't wake up.</p><p>Glimmer bit the lip and looked at the knife in her hand. She hated the idea, but she desperately needed Catra awake. Maybe if...</p><p>She never noticed the pooka before it attacked. Suddenly it was just there, fangs and claws leaping towards Glimmer. She managed to scramble around to get her feet in front of her, and just as the pooka connected she gave it a vicious kick, sending it back towards the mist. But that made her loose her balance, and when the two pookas who had been lurking to the side saw their chance and attacked, she had no defense left.</p><p>Except one last trick.</p><p>Grabbing Catra she gathered all the magic she had left and even as she felt the teeth of the pooka piercing her flesh, she teleported.</p><p>- - -</p><p>They emerged by the closest thing Glimmer had to a home on Beast Island, the one place she knew well enough to form an image of in her head as she teleported in full panic - their homestead.</p><p>The pooka followed along, but fortunately the teleportation confused them, and before they understood what had happened, Glimmer had cut another throat. The last one...</p><p>The last one leapt for Glimmer. She desperately tried to scramble away, but she was too slow.</p><p>Catra wasn't.</p><p>She went from laying motionless on the ground to digging her claws into the throat of the monster without seemingly having to cross the distance in between. She stood over the body, fangs barred, claws dripping with blood, eyes clouded, not yet entirely aware of her surroundings. Glimmer jumped to her feet and ran up to her.</p><p>"Ca-atra," Glimmer gasped, tears of gratitude flowing. "You're..." Catra's eyes immediately focused on her.</p><p>"Glimmer," she whispered. She dove into Glimmer's arms and hugged her, desperately.</p><p>They held each other so hard it hurt while Catra cried.</p><p>"Don't scare me like that," Glimmer pleaded.</p><p>"It almost got me, Sparkles," Catra whispered between sobs.</p><p>"Never!" Glimmer promised. "The Island will never get you. I won't allow it."</p><p>"Glimmer, I..."</p><p>Whatever Catra would have said had to wait, because at that moment they heard a cry of a monster, just a short distance away.</p><p>Reluctantly they let go of each other. Catra looked around.</p><p>"We're back at the homestead." she said with flat voice. Glimmer did a little helpless gesture.</p><p>"We had to get away, and I didn't know where else to go and..." Catra nodded.</p><p>"Running didn't work. We can just as well try to barricade ourselves."</p><p>She slowly moved her head around. Taking in sights, sounds, smells, no doubt reading much, much more of the information than Glimmer ever could. She steadied her breathing and her eyes grew hard.</p><p>"Finish the fence, Sparkles," she said, and there was steel in her voice. "I will hold them off."</p><p>"How many are coming?" Glimmer asked. Catra unsheathed her claws.</p><p>"Enough of them. Now GO!"</p><p>Glimmer ran over to the half finished power converters. She tore at the connections. This was delicate work done with the crudest tools imaginable, and she had to work as fast as she ever could. She heard a yelp as Catra intercepted another monster. Glimmer smashed two cables together and didn't wait for the connection to form until she tore at the next piece, aligning two power cells. She worked in silent desperation, acutely aware of everything that needed to be done. All she had to do was get it working, if only for a short while, to buy her time to expand it, to reinforce it. </p><p>Time enough to keep Catra safe, if only for a little while.</p><p>She dared to look up, and saw Catra in a furious struggle with a beetle-like creature. She managed to break an antenna and lead it away from the building site, but the pookas were circling, waiting for their chance. And more monsters were on their way. Glimmer managed to connect another power cell. She was so close now. Just a handful of connections more and she could close the fence. </p><p>Catra moved like lighting. She slashed at an eye here, a soft underbelly there, an exposed leg there. Any time a monster tried to hit back she had already moved on and the attack hit another beast instead, causing even more confusion and preventing the slithering tide to reach the clearing where Glimmer was frantically working. The monsters would have had better success trying to get to Glimmer through a meat grinder than past her enraged wife.</p><p>Catra fought in silence now. Every movement, every breath completely measured. This was not Catra fighting to win - this was Catra fighting to survive with her back against the wall. Glimmer had fought both against and with Catra enough to realize both how dangerous and how desperate that made her.</p><p>There were more monsters closing in on the homestead than Glimmer could easily count. Not a single one of them got close to Glimmer before Catra's claws found them.</p><p>Claws flashing, Catra tore up the side of the millipede she had been fighting with and took to the trees with a serpentine monster slithering after her. Without hesitation she ran out to the tip of a branch and just before it broke - causing the branch and monster to crash down and block the path below them - she jumped and landed on top of a large frog-like beast. She slid down it's side, claws causing a cruel tear, and went straight for the eyes of the next monster.</p><p>It looked like she could keep it up forever, but naturally she couldn't.</p><p>In the end, Glimmer never knew if Catra missed a step, if the monsters got lucky or if she simply got trapped without a way out. And when it happened, it happened so quick. Just a quick cry, a surprised and pained look in Catra's eyes and then the jaws of an enormous, worm-like creature closed over her and Catra was gone.</p><p>Catra was gone.</p><p>Glimmer stared in disbelief. Time seemed to slow down to a trickle. This couldn't happen. This shouldn't happen. This was...</p><p>Anger, red and hot, boiled in her.</p><p>This was not fair.</p><p>She had suffered. She had fought. She had followed the rules of Beast Island. Eaten bugs, evaded monsters, endured hardship. She had reached within herself, faced demons and insecurities, admitted fault, turned animosity to cooperation and an enemy to a lover.</p><p>
  <i>Beast Island would not get them.</i>
</p><p>She would rather see this entire island melt to <i>slag</i> than allow it to take Catra from her.</p><p>She heard a sound, a long, drawn out thunder like a beat on an enormous war drum which seemed to go on for ever. With faint curiosity she realized it was her own heart.</p><p>In the edge of her vision she could see patterns, like first one's writing. She knew what they meant. Clear as day. She looked at the wall of monsters, boiling in from every direction. She was not scared of them any longer. </p><p>She was going to kill them.</p><p>She looked at her feeble attempts of lumping together old tech. It would never have worked, of course. She didn't have enough time, and it wouldn't have stopped the monsters long anyway. </p><p>But there were many uses for those old power cells... </p><p>She saw it all so clear in her mind. The energy, the flow, the connections. The entire Island was a big, old, mad machine. All it would take for the energy to flow again was just a faint trail for it to follow.</p><p>Like, say, the trails created by the magic of an elemental princess of Etheria.</p><p>Above her the moons shone, cold and bright. Glimmer was the princess of the moon.</p><p>She heard her heart beat again.</p><p>She spread her wings wide.</p><p>She had all the magic she needed, right here.</p><p>- - -</p><p>Well, in the end "all the magic" was a bit of a exaggeration. She was still drained, exhausted and a long way from the moonstone.</p><p>But she had enough.</p><p>Enough for a few jumps, enough for a few sparks, enough to send a message.</p><p>A sane part of her wondered idly about the rationality behind posturing against a piece of geography, but she didn't care. She was just so angry.</p><p>
  <i>We won't die here. We won't!</i>
</p><p>Energy flowed from her hands. Not the gentle sparks she had always been so self conscious about, but pure, white hot beams powerful enough to melt through flesh, bone, chitin, steel and <i>stone</i>. Like tendrils they snaked through the machinery she had been toiling with. Tearing through rusty old container walls, releasing tension, building connections. She had to turn her head away as a crack in the ground released a bright light, ever growing in intensity.</p><p>Then a poof. She teleported straight into the throat of the worm that had swallowed Catra. Even while suffocating, Catra was still swiping at the inside of the creature's throat with her claws. Glimmer grabbed her and then, poof, out again. Up. They materialized high above the island. Glimmer could feel the darkness welling up, but she forced herself to stay conscious. Catra gasped for air and grabbed her tightly as they fell.</p><p>
  <i>Now comes the best part, Kitten.</i>
</p><p>Far, far below them the energy flow Glimmer had created reached it's critical point. They saw the blinding flash before they heard the sound of the explosion, but then the thunder rolled on, and on and on and <i>on</i>, drowning out even the hated droning signal of the island. Dust and debris billowed up in a plume taller than the highest mountain of the Island. The pressure wave felt like the blow of a hammer, despite the distance. Through the fatigue Glimmer felt a pang of smug satisfaction. </p><p>
  <i>Yeah, that will teach the island to mess with my wife.</i>
</p><p>Vaguely she was aware that said wife tried to catch her attention with some urgency. There seemed to be something on her mind. </p><p>
  <i>Chill, Catra. I took care of it. What's the rush?</i>
</p><p>The 'rush' turned out to be the wind. Because they were still falling. Oh, yeah. Glimmer should probably do something about that.</p><p>She poofed them down to the crater and then promptly passed out.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>If you get Adora mad enough, she will give you a stern talking to. If you're a threat to Catra she will <i>end</i> you, brutally and efficiently. But if you back Glimmer into a corner you'd better not be standing on a piece of geography you would miss.</p><p>If you enjoyed this depiction of a furious Glimmer blowing things up you might want to check out my upcoming fic <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30439506/chapters/75053079">"Catra and Glimmer - Queens of the Horde"</a>, which will depict, among other things, a furious Glimmer blowing things up.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0019"><h2>19. The last chapter</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Well then, end of the line, time to get to our happy ending. The road won't be entirely smooth, however, but I promise we will get there.</p><p>Warning: Themes of depression, desperation, hardship and mortality. Yucky eye-stuff and grievous wounds.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Glimmer slowly regained consciousness, at least barely. She felt she was treading water in a sea of inky blackness and could at any point be overwhelmed again. She wondered how much magic she had spent, if there was anything left at all. But what she saw when she opened her eyes made it worth the effort.</p><p>Catra leaned over her, eyes full of concern. Glimmer smiled at her.</p><p>"Hey, Kitten," she whispered.</p><p>"Hey, Sparkles," Catra answered with soft voice. "You had me worried there."</p><p>Glimmer chuckled and immediately winced. She hurt in muscles she didn't even know she had.</p><p>"You're one to talk. I wasn't the one who got eaten by a monster."</p><p>"Yeah... sorry about that."</p><p>Catra missing an opportunity for snark was significant enough for Glimmer to take notice. She sat up.</p><p>"The monsters..?"</p><p>"Gone. You really did a number on them."</p><p>Glimmer looked around. They were sitting at the edge of an enormous crater, strewn with debris and bits and pieces of monsters. Their homestead was completely obliterated. Trees were uprooted, rocks were flung around, the old machines were torn asunder. Glimmer felt pretty proud.</p><p>"Heh, yeah I did. So why are we whispering."</p><p>"There's bound to be more of them, soon. Also..." Catra hesitated. Glimmer abruptly felt the warm glow in her stomach turn into an icy lump.</p><p>"Catra, what's wrong?" Catra's face turned into a mask of fear and guilt.</p><p>"My leg... doesn't work right. I'm sorry."</p><p>Glimmer's eyes snapped downwards. Catra was sitting in an awkward position. There was blood on her fur on her right leg and a bone pipe stuck out through the skin. Glimmer stared in horror. Catra took her hands.</p><p>"Glimmer... I won't make it."</p><p>"No, no, no, no! We can set the bone... I can patch you up... sterilize the wound... we'll lie low... we can..."</p><p>"I can't walk, Glimmer. You can't carry me. The monsters will be back. You have to..."</p><p>"I'm not leaving you."</p><p>"Glimmer! You can't take care of both of us. You have to take care of yourself."</p><p>"NO!" Glimmer shouted the word and Catra glanced at the edge of the forest beyond the crater in fear.</p><p>"I know, Sparkles. I know. You want to save me again. But please, just this once, let me save you. "</p><p>"How long do you think I will last in this place without you?" Glimmer jumped to her feet. "I'm not going anywhere without you. If you want to save me, you stop that talk this instance." She tore her clothes and found a suitable stick among the debris. "Now make yourself useful and help me splint your leg. I need to move you to those rocks over there. That will do as a shelter until morning. Then we... will think of something."</p><p>"Glimmer..."</p><p>"We had a deal, Catra," Glimmer spat. "We'll both make it."</p><p>"...or none of us will."</p><p>"We'll both make it!"</p><p>Fueled by ice cold, furious fear, Glimmer quickly splinted Catra's leg and made a makeshift stretcher. She dragged her over to the rocks and widened the space under them enough for her to drag Catra in. She quickly propped up debris around their temporary shelter to block entrance as well as she could, then she crawled after Catra and placed an old metal sheet, torn off some old machine during the explosion, in front of the hole. She refused to meet Catra's eyes. She couldn't stand to see her expression of apologetic pity.</p><p>
  <i>Beast Island will not take you from me.</i>
</p><p>"Sparkles..."</p><p>"Now we wait. Just a few hours, then we can move. You'll be all right." </p><p>Catra exhaled.</p><p>"Sure. If you say so." She softly startled to chuckle, not quite managing to mask the sobs. "Why do I always have to fall for heroes?"</p><p>Glimmer was about to snap back at her but she forced herself to bite back the sharp retort. She breathed in and out a few times, counting her breaths as she had taught herself. She felt some tension leave her.</p><p>"I wouldn't want it any other way."</p><p>"You and Adora are totally infuriating, do you know that?"</p><p>"We try our best."</p><p>"But seriously, Sparkles..."</p><p>"NO!"</p><p>"Glimmer... please, just let me..."</p><p>"I'm not leaving you."</p><p>"I know, I know. But just be smart about it, OK?"</p><p>"Don't you worry about me," Glimmer said between gritted teeth.</p><p>Catra sighed and gently touched Glimmer's cheek. Glimmer furiously blinked away a tear.</p><p>"Now, that's not fair is it? If you get to worry about me, I get to worry about you." </p><p>Glimmer breathed in and out again.</p><p>"Fine. Fine. Worry about me. But this is not us saying goodbye."</p><p>"Sure, whatever," Catra sighed. "This is not goodbye. But that goes for you too. Don't you dare sacrifice yourself for me."</p><p>"Pffft, in your dreams, kitten."</p><p>"Yes," Catra flatly answered. "In my nightmares." </p><p>She did something then that scared Glimmer more than anything else that had happened since she woke up.</p><p>Catra started to cry.</p><p>Soft, exhausted tears without any attempt to hide it. She pressed her face against Glimmer's back and sobbed. "Please don't get yourself killed," she whispered.</p><p>Glimmer turned to Catra, her own fear turning to tears.</p><p>"I promise," she whispered.</p><p>They cried in silence together.</p><p>"You're lying," Catra whispered after a while.</p><p>"Yeah," Glimmer admitted.</p><p>"So this is how we die, is it?"</p><p>"No, this is how we <i>survive</i>. Together."</p><p>Catra let out an exhausted laughter.</p><p>"You really are completely hopeless, you know that."</p><p>"Always, kitten. Always."</p><p>After that they just held each other. They were both exhausted and hurt, and as the shock wore off they started to shiver. The ubiquitous signal of the island was louder now, for all Glimmer's attempt to silence it.</p><p>She closed her eyes.</p><p>Why fight it? It would all be over soon anyway.</p><p>"Sparkles," Catra whispered.</p><p>Glimmer didn't answer.</p><p>"Remember that time we found those enormous grubs under the log?" Catra said with soft voice. "The most disgusting thing i ever saw, but they tasted great."</p><p>Glimmer smiled at the memory.</p><p>"Sparkles," Catra went on. "Remember that time you fell down from the tree, how mad I was at you? I've never been so scared in my life."</p><p>Glimmer frowned at the memory.</p><p>"Sparkles," Catra said softly. "Remember the day you gave me my necklace?"</p><p>Glimmer opened her eyes. She did remember.</p><p>"Glimmer," Catra said, with voice full of love. "Remember when you said you'd be my wife?"</p><p>Glimmer felt her eyes tearing up. She would never forget that day.</p><p>"Glimmer," Catra said with sharp voice. "Remember that one time you gave up?"</p><p>Glimmer frowned, trying to get her sluggish brain to understand what Catra was getting at.</p><p>"Because I sure don't," Catra said and caught Glimmer's eyes. "Don't you <i>dare</i> start now."</p><p>Glimmer couldn't help but laugh sheepishly at that. Catra smirked at her.</p><p>"It won't get you, Sparkles," she said. A calm statement of facts. "I won't let it."</p><p>"It won't get me," Glimmer whispered for an answer.</p><p>She looked into Catra's steady eyes, her proud grin, despite the pain and fear. Her iron clad, unyielding belief that Glimmer could do this.</p><p>Was this how Catra felt it when she looked into Glimmer's eyes? </p><p>After that, the signal felt less important.</p><p>They held each other until the sun started to rise.</p><p>"All right, Kitten," Glimmer said. "I think we can..."</p><p>"Schhhhhh!" Glimmer immediately silenced. Catra's ears twitched.</p><p>"They're out there." It took a few moments, but then Glimmer heard it too. Shuffling and snuffling, claws scraping over rocks.</p><p>They stayed as silent as they could. The sounds faded, then grew louder. There were at least three of them out there.</p><p>Then suddenly the scraping was upon them, and they heard earth and rocks shifting just by their makeshift shelter.</p><p>Glimmer carefully removed the knife from her pouch.</p><p>Catra put a hand on her arm and gently shook her head. Glimmer raised a quizzical eyebrow.</p><p>"We have to do something," Glimmer whispered. Catra nodded.</p><p>"How fast can you run?"</p><p>"I'm not..."</p><p>"You're not leaving me. Fine. I'm not watching you die in a hole together with me no matter how romantic it would be. So that means we have to get out of here and that means you have to lure the monsters away. So get your cute butt <i>moving</i>. Run for the ravine. I won't be far behind."</p><p>"Your leg is broken, Catra."</p><p>"You think I need <i>two</i> legs to take an oversized bug?" </p><p>Glimmer hesitated. She looked Catra in the eyes.</p><p>"This better not be you trying to be all noble and sacrificing yourself for me."</p><p>"Same."</p><p>"We'll both survive this."</p><p>"Of course we will."</p><p>"I love you, Kitten."</p><p>"I love you too, Sparkles."</p><p>And after a deep breath Glimmer stormed out of the hideout and started to run.</p><p>She heard the sound of claws against stone but she didn't look back. She had the element of surprise, and it took the monsters a few moments to turn around. That completed the list of her advantages, but she was determined to make those few steps head-start count. Behind her she heard Catra scream in rage but she did not dare turn around to see what happened.</p><p>
  <i>Please, please, please Catra, don't try to be Adora now.</i>
</p><p>She ran as fast as she could, relying entirely on her sense of hearing to know when the beast was upon her. She quickly dodged to the side and saw the monster crash past her. She lost momentum when she changed direction, but she turned faster than the monster, and by the time she was sprinting for the ravine again, she had gained another few precious moments before the monster would be upon her again. </p><p>She knew she couldn't keep this up for long.</p><p>She didn't have to.</p><p>An increase in the noise behind her suggested that another monster had joined the hunt, and suddenly Catra's voice cried through the ruckus.</p><p>"SPARKLES! JUMP ON!"</p><p>Glimmer jumped to the side. The moment after a millipede crashed past her in full force, plowing through the monster that had chased her and roughly tackled it to the side. </p><p>Catra clung to its side, steering it by holding onto an antenna. Glimmer saw that one of the millipede's legs were limp and without giving herself time to think she grabbed it and was roughly dragged with it as the beast continued forward.</p><p>Catra managed to work herself up to the eyes of the monster, dragging her splinted leg behind her. She grabbed the eye-stalks and - as the monster tried to shake her off, slashed at the eyes.</p><p>"HOLD ON!" she cried and Glimmer held on.</p><p>Catra had timed her attack for when the monster was leaving the ravine that led out of the crater Glimmer's explosion had created, and blinded and enraged it continued in a straight line forward, crashing down a steep slope towards the forest below. </p><p>Glimmer scrambled like a monkey up the side of the millipede, and as it lost its footing and slid down the slope, she managed to get a good enough grip to stay on for the rough ride. </p><p>The ended up in the forest, close to a rapid creek. The millipede trashed around, blinded and wounded, and Glimmer finally lost her grip. She tumbled to the ground where Catra was already crawling away from the monster. She was white in the face from pain and her jaws were firmly clenched. Glimmer ran up to her.</p><p>"Find us something that floats, Sparkles," Catra hissed. She nodded towards the creek.</p><p>It took Glimmer a few moments to understand the meaning behind Catra's words, but then she ran up to the creek and looked up and down. Right now there were no monsters on their trail, but she knew it was just a question of time.</p><p>The carcass of dead monster, picked clean by scavangers, lay close to the water. Glimmer managed to pry loose a chitin shield and put it by the bank of the creek with the convex side down. Then she hunched down next to Catra.</p><p>"Can you do this, Kitten?" she whispered. Catra shot her wife a disdainful look through the pain.</p><p>"You're the one doing the work, Sparkles," she hissed through gritted teeth. "I'm just along for the ride."</p><p>Glimmer couldn't help but chuckle.</p><p>"Yeah, walk in the park."</p><p>They traded a look.</p><p>Glimmer bent down and gave Catra a soft kiss.</p><p>Then she carefully lifted Catra up on the chitin shield and pushed it out into the water. She lifted Catra as gently as she could, but she still winced every time her wife tried to hide a whimper of pain.</p><p>She pushed the makeshift raft out in the stream and climbed halfway up, leaving her legs dangling in the water. As they got moving she turned and looked the way the had come. She saw the silhouettes of monsters on the ridge they had left.</p><p>The stream was swift and they made good speed. Glimmer steered as well as she could with her legs, and sometimes had to dive in altogether to keep the raft away from the sides. Catra clung to the raft, keeping her mass centered and holding steadily to the edges. Her eyes were closes and she tried to steady her breathing, to get the pain under control. She shivered.</p><p>"Is the fish bothering you?" she asked at one point.</p><p>"No," Glimmer lied.</p><p>Catra opened here eyes and gave her a helpless look. Glimmer looked away.</p><p>It wasn't long - although it certainly felt that way, until they reached a dead end. Trees and debris had formed a barrier for the creek, and although the water found its way through, their makeshift raft couldn't.</p><p>Glimmer helped Catra to the shore and they carefully looked around.</p><p>There didn't seem to be any monsters around.</p><p>"What do you think, Catra," Glimmer whispered. "Do we look for a shelter here or do we continue downstream?"</p><p>Catra slowly moved her head around, ears and nose twitching.</p><p>She froze.</p><p>"We need to get out of here!" she hissed. "NOW!"</p><p>And then Glimmer saw the lantern-like eyes of the pooka.</p><p>They were in the trees. They were on the shores. They were on the blockade.</p><p>They had waited for them.</p><p>Glimmer didn't allow herself time to think, to take in how hopeless their situation was. She grabbed Catra, and with desperate strength carried her downstream, running past the blockade. In the corner of her eyes she saw the pooka slink in behind her. They didn't make any haste.</p><p>Why would they?</p><p>They had won, and they knew it.</p><p>Glimmer made it down to the creek on the other side. Right. Now she needed something that floated. She kept an eye on the pooka in case one of them decided to sneak up to take a nibble, but none of them did.</p><p>Alarm bells started to ring in Glimmer's head.</p><p>"<i>Sparkles!</i>" Catra hissed through her pain, but Glimmer had seen it too. She ran away from the creek as fast as she could as the blockade seemingly exploded, and millipedes slithered out from the clutter.</p><p>She dropped Catra to the ground and spun around. The pooka still kept their distance, but the millipedes descended on them. She unleashed a ball of lighting. It was the faintest magic she could muster, barely better than her first sparks back when she first learnt magic, and even then it threatened to drag her down into unconsciousness again. But it did the job. The leading monster turned to her and she ran to lure it away from Catra.</p><p>But she was cold and hurt, and she did not run as fast as she had before. She tried changing direction, but this time the pooka were there, blocking her, <i>herding</i> her. She fought tears of frustration as she kept dodging the monsters that were steadily gaining ground on her.</p><p>She saw how Catra managed to dig her claws into the side of one of the millipedes, but this time she didn't get a good grip before she was thrown off. She landed painfully on the ground and the monsters closed in. Glimmer abruptly turned and ran back with the large millipede just behind her. Ignoring the teeth snapping after her, ignoring the snarling pooka, she managed to get a hold of Catra's hand and, forcing herself to find a last reserve of energy, tried to teleport them away.</p><p>But she was all out of magic.</p><p>They blinked into existence just a few steps away.</p><p>The beast did not even slow down.</p><p>Still holding her hand, Catra caught her gaze. She smiled through the pain.</p><p>"Hey, it's OK, Glimmer," she said with surprisingly soft voice, given the circumstances. "We gave the island a run for its money."</p><p>Glimmer could feel darkness welling up. She sank down on her knees next to Catra. Strangely, she did not feel scared any longer. There was something serene over this moment.</p><p>"Goodbye, Catra," she whispered. "...and thanks for everyth..."</p><p>"FOR THE HONOR OF GRAYSKULL!"</p><p>And then She-Ra was there.</p><p>Like a blonde cannonball she catapulted into the millipede and headbutted it in the face, knocking a tooth out and, without loosing any momentum she continued into the mouth of the beast with sword drawn. A few very icky moments later the monster was slain and She-Ra emerged from it's innards.</p><p>She was a mess, and not only because she was covered in ichor. Her eyes were dark, she had clearly not got enough sleep. Even her normally so shiny hair was a tangled matt. Without halting for even a moment she jumped into the next monster and - not so much stabbed it as used the sword to rip it apart. She screamed incoherently and cut the nearest pooka right through the eyeball and pushed the sword so far into the creature that her hand pressed right into the ruptured eye and the sword stabbed the <i>next</i> pooka. She killed the next monster. And the next. And the next. And the next. And the <i>next</i>. At that point the rest of the beasts started to get the idea and slithered off as quick as they could, which was not quite quick enough for a good number of them. She-Ra followed the survivors for a few steps, then she apparently decided she didn't like the way some of the trees looked at Glimmer and Catra, and some of the rocks. After that she jumped into the water to punch the razor-finned fish.</p><p>Glimmer, still struggling to remain conscious, could only look in disbelief. In no more than a few heartbeats they had gone from certain death to everything that threatened them being killed, punched or driven away in an ever expanding radius.</p><p>They were... saved?</p><p>That couldn't be right.</p><p>"Glimmer!" Bow cried and rushed up to them. "Catra!" Scorpia cried as she did the same thing.</p><p>Catra apparently struggled as much as Glimmer to follow this new turn of events. As she was scoped up by Scorpia like if she was a child, she kept her grip on Glimmer's hand. Glimmer held it tight. In the midst of all the things that didn't make sense, she knew that as long as she was with Catra, things would be all right. </p><p>Darkness engulfed her and Glimmer sought Catra's eyes.</p><p>- - -</p><p>They were on the deck of a ship.</p><p>They were cleaned. They were fed. Their wounds were tended. They were covered in soft blankets.</p><p>They were safe.</p><p><i>Safe</i>.</p><p>Glimmer still held Catra's hand, refusing to let go.</p><p>Bow held her other hand, crying tears of relief. </p><p>"How did you find us?" she asked, still not quite believing any of this was actually true. He smiled at her.</p><p>"You DID set of a pretty impressive explosion."</p><p>"But how did you even know we were on this island?" He shook his head slightly.</p><p>"That was a journey and a half. Angella and Entrapta managed to connect a gizmo to the moonstone, and..."</p><p>"Entrapta?"</p><p>"Yeah, we figured we would need her help, and Scorpia was as invested in finding you as we were, so we got her from the Fright Zone."</p><p>"Hordak just let them go?"</p><p>"Well, no, Adora went to... negotiate their release. There were a lot of destroyed bots... and tanks... and buildings. Technically Entrapta and Scorpia have defected to our side now."</p><p>"But how did you even get here?"</p><p>"Adora had to destroy some things in the First One's temple, but once Light Hope gave us the location of Beast Island, Entrapta and Swift Wind could triangulate your position using your connection to the moonstone. Then it was just the matter of getting a ship and..."</p><p>"That explains why Sea Hawk is here."</p><p>"Adventure!"</p><p>"...yeah. He tried to set the ship on fire, but Adora punched him. And there were Horde ships in the way, but Adora sank them. And then there were some monsters... a lot of monsters, but Adora..."</p><p>"I get the picture."</p><p>"She was really... you know how she gets when she tries to save someone. With both of you gone... well, it was intense. Me and Swift Wind manged to get her to eat a few bites now and then, and every third day or so she was so exhausted that she got some sleep but... it's been bad."</p><p>Glimmer looked at the sleeping Adora with a fond smile. After She-Ra had punched everything she deemed needed punching in the general vicinity of Glimmer and Catra (causing some quite complex damage to the local geology in the process) she had transformed back and collapsed together with the two of them. Now she snored on the deck of the ship with one hand on Glimmer's leg and the other firmly holding Catra's tail. Catra was too exhausted to pretend to be annoyed by it.</p><p>"Maybe we should move her below deck?" Sea Hawk suggested.</p><p>In perfect harmony and without obvious coordination, Glimmer and Catra both raised a hand each, light dancing over magic force and cruel claws.</p><p>"Maybe we should leave her exactly where she is without disturbing her or in any way separating her from the two of you," Sea Hawk went on in exactly the same tone of voice and in an uncharacteristic display of wisdom went to be somewhere else. Scorpia and Bow also reluctantly moved away a few steps, giving Glimmer, Catra and the sleeping Adora some space.</p><p>Glimmer sought Catra's gaze. They smiled.</p><p>"We... made it."</p><p>"Thanks to you, Sparkles."</p><p>"Thanks to <i>you</i>, Kitten."</p><p>Catra fingered her necklace and gave Glimmer an almost shy look.</p><p>"So.... we go back to hate each other now?"</p><p>Even in her sleep, Adora made a sound of unease. Glimmer laughed.</p><p>"I feel we are done with that part, don't you?"</p><p>"Yeah. Wasn't much fun, in the end."</p><p>"I think this is the part where we show the rest of the world what we are capable of. Both of us."</p><p>Catra took a better grip of Glimmer's hand. They just sat there on the deck, feeling all sorts of emotions wash through them. The further the ship took them from Beast Island, the further away they got from hardship, death and the constant, droning signal threatening to drown them. But they also got further away from the simplicity of surviving day by day and devoting themselves fully to each other because they did not have anything - anyone - else.</p><p>Back there the world was simple. Out here, it would be complicated again. Glimmer squeezed Catra's hand.</p><p>"Hey... Kitten? You know I meant what I said, that day when you made me your wife? You know I won't leave you, right?" Catra met her gaze. Old insecurities and new danced over her features.</p><p>"You promise?" </p><p>Glimmer smiled at her.</p><p>"I already did. We will take on the world just like we took on Beast Island. Together." Glimmer gave Catra a direct look.</p><p>"And you will stay with me, right? No running away?" </p><p>Catra laughed.</p><p>"I already said I'd marriage you, Sparkles, for as long as you want me."</p><p>"Then you're in for the long haul, Kitten."</p><p>Adora made a content sound in her sleep.</p><p>Glimmer and Catra kissed. A long, deep kiss. When they finally separated they could no longer hear the signal of Beast Island.</p><p>I told you it would end in sparkles.</p><p>The End.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thank you for sharing this journey with me.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0020"><h2>20. Epilogue</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"Brrrr. This place gives me the creeps," Swift Wind said. "can we go back to the ship now?"</p>
<p>"Soon," Bow said. "I'll just disconnect the signal Glimmer set. We can't have it lure some other poor soul here." He looked at the crude gadgetry with an impressed expression.</p>
<p>"I can't believe she cobbled this together by herself. No tools, hardly any training, and it still works. A shame it didn't reach further, but good job even so."</p>
<p>"Well, if you are finished I'd really want to be back in Brightmoon, so maybe we could..."</p>
<p>"Excuse me, young man, mister talking horse... I wonder if I might intrude on your conversation without you thinking me too forward."</p>
<p>They turned around and saw a man dressed in rags emerging from the forest. He carried an impressive staff, and an even more impressive - to Bow - likeness to paintings in the royal castle of Brightmoon he was very familiar with.</p>
<p>"It's just that I couldn't help overhear you mentioning <i>Glimmer</i> and <i>Brightmoon</i>," the man continued. "You see, my name is..."</p>
<p>"King Micah!" Bow breathed. The man looked surprised.</p>
<p>"Indeed, but hardly a king anymore. However, I just wanted to inquire, since the two of you seem to be familiar with my daughter... On your way back to Brightmoon... do you perhaps have room for one more?"</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Poor Micah. He really did not have a place in this story about Glimmer and Catra building a world of their own, but it felt mean to just leave him behind.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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